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Updated: June 28, 2025
The words of Captain Howe, nevertheless, which Pierre had repeated to him faithfully, lay rankling in his heart, and he harbored a bitter suspicion as to the good faith of the French authorities. He saw that they professed disapproval of the methods of Le Loutre, but he began to doubt the sincerity of this disapproval. Pierre, however, was troubled by no such misgivings.
By another road, leading into the wooded hills where the villagers were wont to cut their winter firewood, a few of the more hardy and impetuous of the Acadians, disdaining to bend to the authority of Le Loutre, fled away into the wilds with their muskets and a little bread; and these the Indians dared not try to stop.
Among the letters read before the King in his cabinet in May, 1750, was one from Desherbiers, then commanding at Louisbourg, saying that he was advising the Acadians not to take the oath of allegiance to the King of England; another from Le Loutre, declaring that he and Father Germain were consulting together how to disgust the English with their enterprise of Halifax; and a third from the Intendant, Bigot, announcing that Le Loutre was using the Indians to harass the new settlement, and that he himself was sending them powder, lead, and merchandise, "to confirm them in their good designs."
If they yielded to the English, not only would their bodies be destroyed by the savage Micmac Indians, but their immortal souls, they feared, would be in danger. The Abbe Le Loutre was the parish priest of the Acadian village of Beaubassin on Chignecto Bay and also missionary to the Micmac Indians, whose chief village lay in British territory not many miles from Halifax.
The abbe, as Lecorbeau intended, quite failed to catch the double meaning in this speech, which he interpreted in accordance with his own feelings. Like many another unscrupulous deceiver, Le Loutre was himself not difficult to deceive.
There were not lands enough to supply them all, and they pined for the farms of Acadie which Le Loutre had forced them to forsake. Threatened with excommunication and the scalping knife if they should return to their allegiance, and with starvation if they obeyed the commands of their heartless superiors at Quebec, they were girt about on all sides with pain and peril.
The missionaries Le Loutre and de L'Isle-Dieu in the statement prepared by them in 1753, already mentioned, say: "It is very easy to maintain communication with Quebec, winter and summer alike, by the River St. John, and the route is especially convenient for detachments of troops needed either for attack or defence. This is the route to be taken and followed: "From Quebec to the River du Loup.
How the homeless Acadians from Beaubassin lived through the winter is not very clear. They probably found shelter at Chipody and its neighborhood, where there were thriving settlements of their countrymen. Le Loutre, fearing that they would return to their lands and submit to the English, sent some of them to Isle St. Jean.
Some officers of the garrison protested against surrender; and Le Loutre, who thought that he had everything to fear at the hands of the victors, exclaimed that it was better to be buried under the ruins of the fort than to give it up; but all was in vain, and the valiant Vannes was sent out to propose terms of capitulation.
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.
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