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Updated: June 25, 2025
Le Loutre led the way far up the Missaguash, so giving Fort Lawrence a wide berth. Once beyond the fort he turned south, skirting the further edge of what had been peaceful Beaubassin. At this point he led his party into the woods, and for perhaps half an hour the journey was most painful and exhausting.
The English sick and wounded were sent to the settlement of Riviere-aux-Canards, where, protected by a French guard and attended by an English surgeon, they were to remain till able to reach the British fort. La Corne called a council of war, and in view of the scarcity of food and other reasons it was resolved to return to Beaubassin. Many of the French had fallen ill.
The settlements were not begun till nearly forty years after the grant was made. Before night they had passed the New York line, and they made their camp in or near the valley where Williamstown and Williams College now stand. Here they were joined by the Sieurs Beaubassin and La Force, who had gone forward, with eight Indians, to reconnoitre.
Pascal Poirier, senator, are Acadians, as are many other prominent men. And Isabella Labarre, who married Jean Foret, of Beaubassin, was one of the maternal ancestors of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Save in the Maritime Provinces, it is not possible to count the offspring of the original French settlers of Acadia who came out from France in the seventeenth century.
Late on the following day the band drew up their canoes on the banks of the Shubenacadie, where its waters began to redden with the tide, and struck through the woods by a dark trail. The next day the captives were tortured by the sight of a white steeple in the distance, belonging to an Acadian settlement. Crewe judged this to be the village of Beaubassin.
The rest, he said, might retain possession of just so much of their stuff as they could rescue from the general conflagration. The English, he swore, should find nothing of Beaubassin except its ashes.
He told his Acadian parishioners of the little village of Beaubassin, near Fort Lawrence and within the British area, that rather than accept English rule they must now abandon their lands and seek the protection of the French at Fort Beausejour. With his own hands he set fire to the village church. The houses of the Acadians were also burned. A whole district was laid waste by fire.
He saw that the French force three or four times outnumbered his own; and as his mission was one of pacification, he decided not to shed blood uselessly. He ordered a retreat to the ship. The men went very reluctantly, hating to seem overawed; but Major Lawrence explained the situation, and declared that, Beaubassin being burned, there was no special object in remaining.
The village of Beaubassin, consisting, it is said, of a hundred and forty houses, had been burned in the spring; but there were still in the neighborhood, on the English side, many hamlets and farms, with barns full of grain and hay. Le Loutre's Indians now threatened to plunder and kill the inhabitants if they did not take arms against the English.
From Beausejour the flourishing settlement of Beaubassin, on the English side of the Missaguash, was overawed and kept to the French allegiance. The design of the French was to induce all those Acadians whom they could absolutely depend upon to remain in their homes within the English lines, as a means whereby to confound the English counsels.
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