Acadie/Tome III/20
No. III.
To His Most Excellent Majesty, King of Great Britain, etc., etc.
The humble Petition of his subjects, the late French inhabitants of Nova Scotia, formerly settled on the Bay of Mines, and rivers hereunto belonging ; now residing in the Province of Pennsylvania, on behalf of themselves and the rest of the late inhabitants of the said bay, and also of those formerly settled on the river of Annapolis Royal, wheresoever dispersed.
May it please Your Majesty,
It is not in our power sufficiently to trace back the conditions upon which our ancestors first settled in Nova Scotia, under the protection of Your Majesty’s predecessors, as the great part of our elders who were acquainted with these transactions are dead ; but more specially because our papers, which contained our contracts, records, etc., etc., were, by violence, taken from us some time before the unhappy catastrophe which has been the occasion of the calamities we are now under ; but we always understood the foundation thereof to be from an agreement made between Your Majesty’s Commanders in Nova Scotia and our forefathers about the year 1713, whereby they were permitted to remain in the possession of their lands, under an oath of fidelity to the British Government, with an exemption from bearing arms, and the allowance of the free exercise of our religion.
It is a matter of certainty, — and within the compass of some of our memories — that in the year 1730, General Phillips, the Governor of Nova Scotia, did, in Your Majesty’s name, confirm unto us, and all the inhabitants of the whole extent of the Bay of Minas and rivers thereunto belonging, the free and entire possession of those lands we were then possessed of ; which, by grants from the former French Government, we held to us and our heirs forever, on paying the customary quit-rents, etc., etc. And on condition that we should behave with due submission and fidelity to Your Majesty, agreeable to the oath which was then administered to us, which is as follows, viz. : « We sincerely promise and swear, by the faith of a Christian, that we shall be entirely faithful, and will truly submit ourselves to His Majesty King George, whom we acknowledge as sovereign Lord of New Scotland, or Acadia ; so God help us. »
And at the same time, the said General Philipps did, in like manner, promise the said French inhabitants, in Your Majesty’s name, that they should have the true exercise of their religion, and be exempted from bearing arms, and from being employed in war, either against the French or Indians. Under the sanction of this solemn engagement we held our lands, made further purchases, annually paying our quit-rents, etc., etc. ; and we had the greatest reason to conclude that Your Majesty did not disapprove of the above agreement, and that our conduct continued, during a long course of years, to be such as recommended us to your gracious protection, and to the regard of the Governor of New England, appears from a printed declaration, made seventeen years after this time, by His Excellency William Shirley, Governor of New England, which was published and dispersed in our country, some copies of which have escaped from the general destruction of most of our papers, part of which is as follows :
« By His Majesty’s command,
« A declaration of William Shirley, Esq., Captain-General and Governor-in-Chief, in and over His Majesty’s Province of Massachusetts’Bay, etc.
« To His Majesty’s subjects, the French inhabitants of his province of Nova Scotia : Whereas, upon being informed that a report had been propagated among His Majesty’s subjects, the French inhabitants of his Province of Nova Scotia, that there was an intention to remove them from their settlements in that Province, I did, by my declaration, dated 16th September, 1746, signify to them that the same was groundless, and that I was, on the contrary, persuaded that His Majesty would be graciously pleased to extend his royal protection to all such of them as should continue in their fidelity and allegiance to him, and in no wise abet or hold correspondence with the enemies of his crown ; and therein assured them, that I would make a favourable representation of their state and circumstances to His Majesty, and did accordingly transmit a representation thereof to be laid before him, and I have thereupon received his royal pleasure, touching his aforesaid subjects in Nova Scotia, with his express commands to signify the same to them in his name : now, by virtue thereof, and in obedience to His Majesty’s said orders, I do hereby declare, in His Majesty’s name, that there is not the least foundation for any apprehensions of His Majesty’s intending to remove them, the said inhabitants of Nova Scotia, from their said settlements and habitations within the said Province ; but that, on the contrary, it is His Majesty’s resolution to protect and maintain all such of them as have adhered to and shall continue in their duty aud allegiance to him, in the quiet and peaceable possession of their respective habitations and settlements, and in the enjoyment of their rights and privileges as his subjects, etc., etc. »
Dated at Boston, the 21st of October, 1747.
And this is farther confirmed by a letter, dated 29th of June, in the same year, wrote to our deputies by Mr. Mascarene, then Your Majesty’s chief commander in Nova Scotia, which refers to Governor Shirley’s first declaration, of which we have a copy, legally authenticated, part of which is as follows, viz. :
« As to the fear you say you labor under, on account of being threatened to evacuate the country, you have in possession His Excellency William Shirley’s printed letter, whereby you may be made easy in that respect : you are sensible of the promises I have made to you, the effects of which you have already felt, that, I would protect you so long as, by your conduct and fidelity to the Crown of Great Britain, you would enable me to do so, which promise I do again repeat to you. »
Near the time of the publication of the before mentioned declaration, it was required that our deputies should, on behalf of all the people, renew the oath formerly taken to General Philipps, which was done without any mention of bearing arms, and we can with truth say, that we are not sensible of alteration in our disposition and conduct since that time ; but that we always continued to retain a grateful regard to Your Majesty and your Government, notwithstanding which, we have found ourselves surrounded with difficulties unknown to us before. Your Majesty determined to fortify our Province and settle Halifax ; which the French looking upon with jealousy, they made frequent incursions through our country, in order to annoy that settlement, whereby we came exposed to many straits and hardships ; yet, from the obligations we were under, from the oath we had taken, we were never under any doubt, but that it was our indispensable duty and interest, to remain true to your Government and our oath of fidelity, hoping that in time those difficulties would be removed, and we should see peace and tranquillity restored ; and if, from the change of affairs in Nova Scotia, Your Majesty had thought it not inconsistent with the safety of your said Province to let us remain there upon the terms promised us by your Governors, in Your Majesty’s name, we should doubtless have acquiesced with any other reasonable proposal which might have been made to us, consistent with the safety of our aged parents, and tender wives and children ; and we are persuaded, if that had been the case, whereever we had retired, we should have held ourselves under the strongest obligations of gratitude, from a thankful remembranee of the happiness we had enjoyed under Your Majesty’s administration and gracious protection. About the time of the settlement of Halifax, General Cornwallis, Governor of Nova Scotia, did require that we should take the oath of allegiance without the exemption before allowed us of not bearing arms ; but this we absolutely refused, as being an infringement of the principal condition upon which our forefathers agreed to settle under the British Government.
And we acquainted Governor Cornwallis, that if Your Majesty was not willing to continue that exemption to us, we desire liberty to evacuate the country, proposing to settle on the Island of St. John, where the French Government was willing to let us have ; which proposal he at the time refused to consent to, but told us he would acquaint Your Majesty therewith and return us an answer. But we never received an answer, nor was any proposal of that made to us until we were made prisoners.
After the settlement of Halifax we suffered many abuses and insults from Your Majesty’s enemies, more specially from the Indians in the interest of the French, by whom our cattle was killed, our houses pillaged, and many of us personally abused and put in fear of our lives, and some even carried away prisoners towards Canada, solely on account of our resolution to maintain our oath of fidelity to the English Government ; Particularly Rene LeBlanc — our public notary — was taken prisoner by the Indians when actually travelling in Your Majesty’s service, his house pillaged, and himself carried to the French fort, from whence he did not recover his liberty but with great difficulty, after four years, captivity.
We were likewise obliged to comply with the demand of the enemy, made for provisions, cattle, etc., etc., upon pain of military execution, which we had reason to believe the Government was made sensible was not an act of choice on our part, but of necessity, as those in authority appeared to take in good part the representations we always made to them after anything of that nature had happened.
Notwithstanding the many difficulties we thus laboured under, yet we dare appeal to the several Governors, both at Halifax and Annapolis Royal, for testimonies of our being always ready and willing to obey their orders, and give all the assistance in our power, either in furnishing provisions and materials, or making roads, building forts, etc., etc., agreeable to Your Majesty’s orders, and our oath of fidelity, whensoever called upon, or required thereunto.
It was also our constant care to give notice to Your Majesty’s commanders, of the danger they from time to time have been exposed to by the enemy’s troops, and had the intelligence we gave been always attended to, many lives might have been spared, particularly in the unhappy affair which befell Major Noble and his brother at Grand Pre, when they, with great numbers of their men were cut off by the enemy, notwithstanding the frequent advices we had given them of the danger they were in ; and yet we have been very unjustly accused as parties in that massacre.
And although we have been thus anxiously concerned to manifest our fidelity in these several respects, yet it has been falsely insinuated, that it had been our general practice to abet and support Your Majesty’s enemies ; but we trust that Your Majesty will not suffer suspicions and accusations to be received as proof sufficient to reduce thousands of innocent people, from the most happy situation to a state of the greatest distress and misery. No, this was far from our thoughts ; we steemed our situation so happy as by no means to desire a change.
We have always desired, and again desire that we may be permitted to answer our accusers in a judicial way. In the meantime permit us, sir, here solemnly to declare, that these accusations are utterly false and groundless, so far as they concern us as a collective body of peoole. It hath been always our desire to live as our fathers have done, as faithful subjects under Your Majesty’s royal protection, with an unfeigned resolution to maintain our oath of fidelity to the utmost of our power. Yet it cannot be expected but that amongst us, as well as amongst other people, there have been some weak and false-hearted persons, susceptible of being bribed by the enemy so as to break the oath of fidelity. Twelve of these were outlawed in Governor Shirley’s Proclamation before mentioned ; but it will be found that the number of such false-hearted men amongst us were very few, considering our situation, the number of our inhabitants, and how we stood circumstanced in several respects ; and it may easily be made to appear that it was the constant care of our Deputies to prevent and put a stop to such wicked conduct when it came to their knowledge.
We understand that the aid granted to the French by the inhabitants of Beaubassin has been used as an argument to accelerate our ruin ; but we trust that Your Majesty will not permit the innocent to be involved with the guilty ; no consequence can be justly drawn, that, because those people yielded to the threats and persuasions of the enemy we should do the same. They were situated so far from Halifax as to be in a great measure out of the protection of the English Government, which was not our case ; we were separated from them by sixty miles of uncultivated land, and had no other connection with them than what is usual with neighbors at such a distance ; and we can truly say, we looked on their defection from Your Majesty’s interest with great pain and anxiety. Nevertheless, not long before our being made prisoners, the house in which we kept our contracts, records, deeds, etc., was invested with an armed force, and all our papers violently carried away, none of which have to this day been returned us, whereby we are in a great measure deprived of means of making our innocence and the justness of our complaints appear in their true light.
Upon our sending a remonstrance to the Governor and Council, of the violence that had been offered us by the seizure of our papers, and the groundless fears the Government appeared to be under on our account, by their taking away our arms, no answer was returned to us ; but those who had signed the remonstrance, and some time after sixty more, in all about eighty of our elders, were summoned to appear before the Governor in Council, which they immediately complied with ; and it was required of them that they should take the oath of allegiance without the exemption which, during a course of nearly fifty years, has been granted to us and to our fathers, of not being obliged to bear arms, and which was the principal condition upon which our ancestors agreed to remain in Nova Scotia, when the rest of the inhabitants evacuated the country ; which, as it was contrary to our inclination and judgment, we thought ourselves engaged in duty absolutely to refuse. Nevertheless, we freely offered, and would gladly have renewed our oath of fidelity, but this was not accepted, and we were all immediately made prisoners, and were told by the Governor, that our estates, both real and personal, were forfeited for Your Majesty’s use. As to those who remained at home, they were summoned to appear before the commanders in the forts, which we showing some fear to comply with, on account of the seizure of our papers, and imprisonment of so many of our elders, we had the greatest assurance given us, that there was no other design but to make us renew our former oath of fidelity ; yet, as soon as we were within the fort, the same judgment was passed on us as had been passed on our brethren at Halifax, and we were also made prisoners.
Thus, notwithstanding the solemn grants made to our fathers by General Philipps, and the declaration made by Governor Shirley and M. Mascarene in Your Majesty’s name, that it was Your Majesty’s resolution to protect and maintain all such of us as should continue in their duty and allegiance to Your Majesty, in the quiet and peaceable possession of their settlements, and the enjoyment of all their rights and privileges as Your Majesty’s subjects ; we found ourselves at once deprived of our liberties, without any judicial process, or even without any accusers appearing against us, and this solely grounded on mistaken jealousies and false suspicions that we are inclinable to take part with Your Majesty’s enemies. But we again declare that that accusation is groundless ; it was our fixed resolution to maintain, to the utmost of our power, the oath of fidelity whith we had taken, not only from a sense of indispensable duty, but also because we were well satisfied with our situation under Your Majesty’s Government and protection, and did not think it could be bettered by any change which could be proposed to us. It has also been falsely insinuated that we held the opinion that we might be absolved from our oath so as to break it with impunity, but this we likewise solemnly declare to be a false accusation, and which we plainly evinced by our exposing ourselves to so great losses and sufferings rather than take the oath proposed to the Governor and Council, because we apprehended we could not in conscience comply therewith.
Thus we, our ancient parents and grandparents — men of great integrity and approved fidelity to Your Majesty — and our innocent wives and children, became the unhappy victims to those groundless fears ; we were transported into the English Colonies, and this was done in so much haste, and with so little regard to our necessities and the tenderest ties of nature, that from the most social enjoyments, and affluent circumstances, many found themselves destitute of the necessaries of life. Parents were separated from children, husbands from wives, some of whom have not to this day met again ; and we were so crowded in the transport vessels, that we had not room even for all our bodies to lay down at once, and consequently were prevented from carrying with us proper necessaries, especially for the support and comfort of the aged and weak, many of whom quickly ended their misery with their lives. And even those amongst us who had suffered deeply from Your Majesty’s enemies, on account of their attachment to your Majesty’s Government, were equally involved in the common calamity, of which Rene LeBlanc, the Notary Public before mentioned, is a remarkable instance. He was seized, confined, and brought away among the rest of the people, and his family, consisting of twenty children, and about one hundred and fifty grandchildren, were scattered in different colonies, so that he was put on shore at New York, with only his wife and two youngest children, in an infirm state of health, from whence he joined three more of his children at Philadelphia, where he died without any more notice being taken of him than any of us, notwithstanding his many years’ labor and deep sufferings for Your Majesty’s service.
The miseries we have since endured are scarce sufficiently to be expressed, being reduced for a livelihood to toil and hard labor in a southern clime, so disagreeable to our constitutions that most of us have been prevented by sickness from procuring the necessary subsistenee for our familles ; and therefore are threatened with that which we esteem the greatest aggravation of all our sufferings, even of having our children forced from us, and bound out to strangers and exposed to contagious distempers unknown in our native country.
This, compared with the affluence and ease we enjoyed, shows our condition to be extremely wretched. We have already seen in this Province of Pensylvania two hundred and fifty of our people, which is more than half the number that were landed here, perish through misery and various diseases. In this great distress and misery, we have, under God, none but Your Majesty to look with hopes of relief and redress :
We therefore hereby implore your gracious protection, and request you may be pleased to let the justice of our complaints be truly and impartially enquired into, and that Your Majesty would please to grant us such relief, as in your justice and clemency you will think our case requires, and we shall ourselves bound to pray, etc.