f various nations, but chiefly French, the others were
English, Scotch, Swiss, Dutch, &c. the Protestants amongst whom, and
especially their children were, in process of time, brought over to a
conformity of faith with ours. They found they could not easily keep
their footing in the country, or live sociably with the great majority
of the French, but by this means of coming over to our religion.

Certain Normans, of which number was Champlein, were the _first_ French
that discovered Port-Royal, now Annapolis, where they found some Scotch
settled, who had built a fort of turf, and planted in the area before it
some plumb-trees, and walnut-trees, which was all the works of
agriculture, and fortification the British nation had made in this
country before the year 1710. This is the chief reason [And a very good
one surely.] too, why they so much insist on calling Acadia,
Nova-Scotia, and pretend to be the first inhabitants and true
proprietors. These Scotch were driven from Port-Royal by the Normans. It
is true, they had discovered the river of Port-Royal _before_ the
Normans, and had built a turf-fort; but it is by no means true, that
they were therefore the true settlers on this river, and less yet in the
whole of Acadia. [Nothing can be more false and pitiful, than what
follows of this Frenchman's reasoning. If a fort is not a settlement,
what can be called one? Is it not one of the most valid, and generally
received marks of taking possession? It supposes always a design to
cultivate and improve; and no doubt but these first settlers would have
done both, if they had not been untimely driven away.] The true
inhabitants are those who cultivate a country, and thereby acquire a
real permanent situation. The property of ground is to them who clear,
plant, and improve it. The English had done nothing in this way to it
till the year 1710. They never came there, but on schemes of incursion
or trade; and in all the wars they had with the French, on being
superior to them, they contented themselves with putting them to ransom;
and though they sometimes took their fortified places, they did not
settle in them. As all their pretension in Acadia was trade, they
sometimes indeed detained such French as they could take prisoners; but
that was only for the greater security of their traffic in the mean
while with the savages. Traders, continually obliged to follow the
savages in their vagabond journeys, could not be supposed to have tim