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Updated: June 28, 2025
Cornwallis soon discovered to what extent the clergy stirred their flocks to revolt; and he wrote angrily to the Bishop of Quebec: "Was it you who sent Le Loutre as a missionary to the Micmacs? and is it for their good that he excites these wretches to practise their cruelties against those who have shown them every kindness?
Some were eager to go; some went with reluctance; some would scarcely be persuaded to go at all. "They leave their homes with great regret," reports the Governor of Isle St. Jean, speaking of the people of Cobequid, "and they began to move their luggage only when the savages compelled them." These savages were the flock of Abbé Le Loutre, who was on the spot to direct the emigration.
It is that wicked Le Loutre who is your enemy." "Yes," assented Pierre, very heartily. "We all hate him. And many of us love the English, and would be friends if we dared; but I do not love any but the Holy Saints and the French. I love France!" and the boy's voice rang with enthusiasm. A slight shade of sadness passed over the young captain's earnest face.
"Monsieur Desherbiers," says a letter of earlier date, "has engaged Abbé Le Loutre to distribute the usual presents among the savages, and Monsieur Bigot has placed in his hands an additional gift of cloth, blankets, powder, and ball, to be given them in case they harass the English at Halifax. This missionary is to induce them to do so."
No doubt the feeling that had been created against the Acadians, by their refusal to take an unconditional oath of allegiance to Great Britain the only oath that could be possibly offered to them by a self-respecting and strong government was intensified by the notorious fact that a number of them had been actually captured at Fort Beauséjour with arms in their hands, though in this case they appear to have been really the mere tools of Le Loutre and French emissaries who grossly misled them.
The most strenuous of these clerical agitators was Abbe Le Loutre, missionary to the Micmacs, and after 1753 vicar-general of Acadia. He was a fiery and enterprising zealot, inclined by temperament to methods of violence, detesting the English, and restrained neither by pity nor scruple from using threats of damnation and the Micmac tomahawk to frighten the Acadians into doing his bidding.
He deemed himself justified in making every possible effort to keep the English from gaining a foothold north of the Bay of Fundy, but it does not appear that he ever incited the Indians to indulge their savage instincts, or that he was guilty of the duplicity and barbarity that have been so freely laid to the charge of the Abbe Le Loutre.
They sent an army to Fort Lawrence, attacked Fort Beausejour, forced its timid commander Vergor to surrender, mastered the whole surrounding country, and obliged Le Loutre himself to fly to Quebec. There he embarked for France. The English captured him on the sea, however, and the relentless and cruel priest spent many years in an English prison.
Le Loutre made no answer, for now events on the battlefield were enchaining every eye. Behind the second line of dikes the Micmacs and Acadians had again intrenched themselves. Major Lawrence, perceiving this, at once ordered another charge. Then the Indians resolved on a bold and perilous stroke. The right of their position was nearest the attacking force.
This expedition had been sent out from Halifax with a commendable secrecy, but neither its approach nor its purpose could be kept hidden from the ever-alert Le Loutre. Since Beaubassin was on British soil, no armed opposition could be made to the landing of the British force; and the troops on Beausejour could only gnaw their mustaches and gaze in angry silence.
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