, every object that we touched, recalled to our hearts some
sweet remembrance of days gone by. Our whole life seemed centered in
the furniture of our desolate homes; in the flowers that decked our
gardens; in the very trees that shaded our yards. They whispered to
us ditties of our blithe childhood; they recalled to us the glowing
dreams of our adolescence illumined with their fleeting illusions;
they spoke to us of the hopes and happiness of our maturer years; they
had been the mute witnesses of our joys and of our sorrows, and we
were leaving them forever. As we gazed upon them, we wept bitterly,
and in our despair, we felt as if the sacrifice was beyond our
strength. But our sense of duty nerved us, and the terrible ordeal we
were undergoing did not shake our resolve, and submitting to the will
of God, we preferred exile and poverty, with their train of woes and
humiliations, before dishonoring ourselves by becoming traitors and
renegades.

"In the course of the day our grief increased, and the scenes that
took place were heart-rending. I never recall them without shuddering.

"Our people, so meek, so peaceable, became frenzied with despair. The
women and children wandered from house to house, wailing and uttering
piercing cries. Every object of spoil was destroyed, and the torch was
applied to the houses. The fire, fanned by a too willing breeze,
spread rapidly, and in a moment's time, St. Gabriel was wrapt in a
lurid sheet of devouring flames. We could hear the cracking of planks
tortured by the blaze; the crash of falling roofs, while the flames
shot up to an immense height with the hissing and soughing of a
hurricane. Ah! Petiots, it was a fair image of pandemonium. The people
seemed an army of fiends, spreading ruin and desolation in their
path. The work-oxen were killed, and a few among us, with the hope of
a speedy return to Acadia, threw our silverware into the wells. Oh,
the ruin, the ruin, petiots; it was horrible.

"We left St. Gabriel numbering about three hundred, whilst the ashes
of our burning houses, carried by the wind, whirled past us like a
pillar of light to guide our faltering steps through the wilderness
that stretched before us."

Chapter Six

A Night of Terror and of Misery. The
Exiles are Captured by the
English Soldiery

_Driven to the seashore and embarked for deportation--They
are thrown as cast-aways on the Maryland
shores--The hospitality and generosity
of Charles