They never ceased giving every mark in their power of
their preference of our government to that, under which the treaty of
Utrecht had put them. The English, however, at length finding that,
neither by fair nor foul means, could they reclaim or win them over to
their purpose, so as that they might in future depend upon them, came at
once to a violent resolution. They surprized and seized every French
Acadian-man they could lay their hands on, (the women they knew would
follow of course) and, to clear the country effectually of them,
dispersed them into the remotest parts of their other settlements in
North-America, where they thought they could do the least mischief to
them. Some were shipped off for England: the priests shared the same
fate, and were conveyed to Europe. With this evacuation, the very
existence of the French Acadians may be said to have ended; for in
Acadia there are scarce any traces of them left, few or none having
escaped this general seizure and transportation, for the necessity of
which, the English were perhaps more to be pitied than blamed.
In the mean time our government had so far succeeded, as to force the
English, thus to deprive themselves of such a number of subjects, who,
but for the reasons above deduced, might have been very valuable ones,
and a great strengthening of their new colony.
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