ste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers for ever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the
ocean--
Nought but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand Pre."

So sang Longfellow in his sorrowful tale of _Evangeline_; and the cold
page of history is hardly less mournful.

The 5th of September, 1755, was a day memorable alike to the Acadians
and to those whose bitter duty it was to carry out King George's
orders for their expulsion from the peninsula. At three o'clock in the
afternoon the peasants of Grand Pre, Piziquid, Chipody, and the other
parishes assembled in their chapels to listen to a royal proclamation
declaring their lands and houses forfeited to the Crown, and
themselves condemned to exile. The scenes following this unexpected
order wrung the hearts of the rugged soldiers who were sent to execute
the sentence. Reluctantly and forbearingly they carried out the royal
command, and soon six thousand Acadians, who had persistently refused
allegiance to the English in the vain belief that New France would
regain the peninsula, found themselves transported to the English
colonies farther south. Those who swore allegiance were left
undisturbed; while many, escaping both deportation and the oath of
subjection, fled to Quebec. These were doomed, however, to misery far
greater than that of their comrades who were set down as strangers
among the English colonists. Quebec, which had fomented and abetted
their treason, now declined to share the burden of their misfortune.

The years of Bigot's _regime_ were the lean years of the city, and
this influx of a thousand new starvelings was a most unwelcome
addition to the population. Yet even the unfavourable circumstances of
the time cannot justify the official neglect and the cruel
inhospitality with which the miserable exiles were received in the
capital of New France. "In vain," says a chronicler, "they asked that
the promises they had received should be kept, and they pleaded the
sacrifices they had made for France. All was useless. The former
necessity for their services had passed away. They were looked upon as
a troublesome people, and if they received assistance they were made
to feel that it was only granted out of pity. They were almost reduced
to die of famine. The little food they obtained, its bad quality,
their natural want of cle