but in French, and as I am informed they came to the resolution from looking on themselves entirely as French subjects.
« Captain Cotterell, who is Secretary for the Province of Nova Scotia and is in this Country for the recovery of his health, found among those Neutrals one who had been a Spie of Colonel Cornwallis and afterwards of Governor Lawrence, who he tells me had behaved well both in giving accounts of what those people were doing and in bringing them intelligence of the situation and strength of the French forts and in particular of Beauséjour ; by this man I learnt that there were five principal leading men among them who stir up all the disturbance these people make in Pennsylvania and who persuade them to go and join the enemy and who prevent them from submitting to any regulation made in the country, and to show their children to put out to work.
On finding this to be the case, I thought it necessary for me to prevent as far as I possibly could, such a junction to the enemy ; on which I secured those five ring leaders and put them on board Captain Talkingham’s ship, the Sutherland, in order to his carrying them to England, to be disposed of as his Majesty’s servants shall think proper ; but I must inform you that if they are turned loose they will directly return and continue to raise all the disturbance in their power, therefore it appears to me that the safest way of keeping them would be to employ them as sailors on board ships of war.
The Right Hon.
(Indorsed) « R. July 6th. »
It is quite possible that the men thus exiled — and of their fate there is no trace — may have been the leaders, the speakers, the writers for the exiles ; for after they went away, there appears no recorded remonstrance or petition from the others. They wasted away in uncomplaining misery — pensioners on charity. They are rarely referred to in public documents.
On the 9th of February, 1761, a committee of inquiry on the subject was appointed by the Assembly, and on the 26th they reported as follows :
« We, the committee appointed to examine into the state of the French Neutrals, and to report our opinion of the best method of lessening their expense to this province, have, in pursuance of the said appointment, made inquiry, and thereupon do report —
« That the late extraordinary expenses charged by the overseers of the poor, have been occasioned by the general sickness which prevailed amongst them, in common with other inhabitants, during the last fall and part of the winter ; this, added to the ordinary expense of supporting the indigent widows, orphans, aged and decrepid persons, has greatly enlarged the accounts of this year. They have likewise a number of children, who, by the late acts of Assembly, ought to have been bound out to services, but their parents have always
