sources of information in the text itself, readily sacrificing the attractiveness of the narrative to the higher purpose of affording, to the earnest inquirer after truth, the best available data for forming au independent and reasonable judgment.
In this connection it my be well to point out how my researches have brought to light a most curious instance of the progressive distortion which history may be made to suffer under the skilful manipulation of unscrupulous men. The Compiler, confronted, on the one hand, with a collection of documents already mutilated by interested persons, and, on the other, by the public opinion of a hundred years condemning the act which it was his business to throw into clearer relief, sets to work to garble and distort the scraps that had escaped destruction. Far from fulfilling the mission entrusted to him by the Legislature, far from furnishing matter for real history, his compilation, by the very fact of its issuing under such high patronage, of its consequent claim to impartiality, and of its facilitating the labor of research, would inevitably constitute, for the average student of history, a barrier to further inquiry, and would thus pave the way for Lawrence’s defenders. Such must have been the Compiler’s purpose. Sooner or later some bold writer would be found to realize it and stamp it with the semblance of finality. That writer is Parkman. Trenchant assertions, positive and precise conclusions and all the other resources of his profound craftiness have been brought to bear upon a fresh mutilation and a further distortion of the Compiler’s distorted and twice garbled collection. After Parkman, as might have been expected, other writers would arise who, with less knowledge of the subject, would improve on his system of suppression or at least of unwarrantable inference. This process of progressive distortion must have pretty nearly reached its utmost limit in the following lines :
« The Maritime Provinces, — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, cover, at least the first two of them cover, the area of the old French Acadie, which, submerged by the tide of conquest, shows itself only in the ruined fortifications of Louisburg, once the Acadian Gibraltar, in remains of the same kind at Annapolis, and in a relic of the French population. The name, with the lying legend of British cruelty connected with it, has been embalmed, not in amber but in barley-sugar, by the writer of « Evangeline ».
« Lieutenant-Governor Adam Archibald, Mr. Parkman, and Dr. Kingston have completely disposed of this fiction, and shown that the deportation of the Acadians was a measure of necessity, to which recourse was had only when forbearance was exhausted. The blame really rests on the vile and murderous intrigues of the priest Le Loutre. The commander of the troops, Winslow, was an American. »[1]
- ↑ Goldwin Smith : Canada and the Canadian Question, p. 56.
