f them from the province.

[Footnote 70: From Volume IV, Chapter VIII, of "The History of the
United States," as published in 1862. Acadia was the name of the
original French colony in the eastern part of Canada, including Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick and adjacent islands. It was first colonized by
the French in 1604. It is more particularly of the French settlers in
Nova Scotia that Bancroft writes. These were deported by the British
in 1755. Longfellow's poem "Evangeline" is founded on an incident in
this deportation, by which two lovers were hopelessly parted.
Hawthorne is said first to have heard this story and considered it as
the theme for a novel, but, unable to use it satisfactorily to
himself, he passed it on to Longfellow.]

That the cruelty might have no palliation, letters arrived leaving no
doubt that the shores of the Bay of Fundy were entirely in the
possession of the British; and yet at a council, at which Vice-Admiral
Boscawen and Rear-Admiral Mostyn were present by invitation, it was
unanimously determined to send the French inhabitants out of the
province; and, after mature consideration, it was further unanimously
agreed that, to prevent their attempting to return and molest the
settlers that were to be set down on their lands, it would be most
proper to distribute them among the several colonies on the continent.

To hunt them into the net was impracticable; artifice was therefore
resorted to. By a general proclamation, on one and the same day, the
scarcely conscious victims, "both old men and young men, as well as
all the lads of ten years of age," were peremptorily ordered to
assemble at their respective posts. On the appointed fifth of
September they obeyed. At Grand Pre, for example, four hundred and
eighteen unarmed men came together. They were marched into the church
and its avenues were closed, when Winslow, the American commander,
placed himself in their center, and spoke:

"You are convened together to manifest to you his majesty's final
resolution to the French inhabitants of this his province. Your lands
and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are
forfeited to the crown, and you yourselves are to be removed from this
his province. I am, through his majesty's goodness, directed to allow
you liberty to carry off your money and household goods, as many as
you can, without discommoding the vessels you go in."

And he then declared them the King's prisoners. Their w