One instance I am sure cannot but make you laugh. In September,
1754, the priest at _Pigigeesh_, had appointed his parishioners to
perform the religious ceremony of a _Recess_, and to make them expiate
some disgust they had given him, obliged them, men, women, and children,
to attend the adoration of the holy-sacrament with a rope about their
necks; and what is more, he not only made them all buy the rope of him,
in which you may be sure he took care to find his account, but exacted
their coming to fetch it bare-footed, from his parsonage house; and this
they quietly submitted to. In short, considering the sweets of power on
whomsoever exercised, our good fathers the missionaries are not so much
to be pitied, as they would have us believe, for their great apostolical
labors, and exposure to fatigue; since it is certain, they live like
little kings in their respective parishes, and enjoy in all senses the
best the land affords; and even our government itself, for its own ends,
is obliged to pay a sort of court to them, and to keep them in good
humour.
The Acadian men were commonly drest in a sort of coarse black stuff made
in the country; and many of the poorer sort go bare-footed in all
weathers.
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