The Abbé Daudin continued to upbraid Desenclaves for refusing to exhort his parishioners to abandon their farms and emigrate to the Isthmus of Chignecto. Desenclaves had left Annapolis in the spring of 1754 : the last entry in the Register in his hand is dated April 8, 1754. He went to the d’Entremonts and Amisaults at Cape Sable, which included the two settlements now known as Barrington and Pubnico, and remained two years. When Prebble landed there on his way from Halifax to Boston in April, 1756, he took prisoners and carried off many of the Acadian inhabitants. Desenclaves escaped with a few Acadians and found refuge at Baccaro Point, four miles beyond Port La Tour. After staying there for two years and a half he was captured by Goreham’s Rangers, who had been sent by Monckton in September, 1758, to search for Acadian refugees in the vicinity of Cape Sable. Monckton has the following entry in his Journal, October 15, 1758 :
« The Pilot Schooner arrives [in the River St. John, N. B.] with a Letter from Maj’r Morris — Acquainting me — that, after, having despaired of meeting with any of the Inhabitants — for want of proper Guides — Cap’ Goreham with a small party had surpris’d a small village, in which he had taken one Mr. Disenclave (sic) the priest & between 60 to 70 Men, Women & Children. » [Canadian Archives, M. 211-1 : C. O. 5 : 54 ; formerly A. & W. I. 89-1.]
Morris embarked the prisoners and sent them to Halifax. These prisoners with others taken during the fall of 1758 were sent on board two Cartel-ships to France, and landed at Havre in February, 1759. Desenclaves had been nine years a missionary in Canada and twenty years in Acadia. When taken at Baccaro he was poor, old and feeble. Through the good offices of the Abbé de l’Isle Dieu, the minister, M. Berryer, obtained a gratuity of four hundred livres for the poor Abbé, who went to Limoges, where he ended his days. The date of his death is not known. We have from his pen a curious letter addressed to M. Berryer at Versailles, of which a translation is here given.
« My Lord, — The rumours of peace that are current here lead me to entreat your lordship to allow me to importune you a little. You can read this at odd hours. In any case I have the honour to assure your Lordship that my zeal both for the interests of religion and for those of my country, together with the long and frequent interviews I was compelled to have with the English governors and officers, who spoke to me with the utmost frankness, have combined to procure me a vast amount of information, which may, perhaps, be useful.
« It is true, My Lord, that England might listen to, and even submit peace proposals, but, to judge by what was said, she would come to no decision until she should have seen the success of her attack on Canada. She has the conquest of that country particularly at heart, because she regards it as an assurance of perpetual tranquillity for New England, [since it would involve] the reduction of winning over of the Indians — the end she has chiefly in view. If Canada be taken, whereof there is great danger, she will be more exacting ; if not, she would be more readily disposed to peace. But in any case she will
