depart from hence, or be pleased to send us to our nation, or any where to join our country people ; but if you cannot grant us these favors, we desire that provision may be made for our subsisteuce so long as we are detained here. If this, our humble request, should be refused, and our wives and children be suffered to perish before our eyes, how grievous will this be ; had we not better have died in our native land. » They admit thy have refused cows, and gardens and modes of industry, because, say they, « we will never consent to settle here. » To the Governor they spoke the same language of supplication and remonstrance, though one may almost suspect satire, in their affectionate loyalty, when they beg to be suffered to join their own nation « in the same manner which it has pleased his majesty, King George (whom may God preserve), to cause us to be transported here contrary to our will. » — (7 colonial Record, p. 239.) The remonstrance, be its object what it may have been, had no effect, for, while the Assembly paused, the Governor sternly repelled the supplicants, with the decision that they could not and should not be treated as prisoners of war, and hinted to the Assembly that it was expedient the Neutrals should be more generally dispersed. (Id. p. 241.)
On the meeting of the Assembly in October, 1756, there is a sad revelation on its records of the sufferings of those poor people ; made, too, not by them, but by one of the kindest of the voluntary almsgivers. It is the petition of William Griffitts, one of the Commissioners. Disease and death had been busy among the exiles. Many had died of the small pox, and but for the care that had been bestowed on them, many more would heve perished miserably. The overseers of the rural townships refused to receive them. The prejudice against the foreigners prevented the employment of those who were willing to work, « and many of them », says this paper, « have had neither meat nor bread for many weeks together, and been necessitated to pilfer and steal for the support of life. » (Votes, p. 645).
The simple Acadian farmers, who, in their once happy and secluded homes, a short year ago
had become, or were becoming, mendicant pilferers in the streets of Philadelphia ! It is piteous to think of the contrast.
This appeal again moved the Assembly, and in as short a time as the dilatory forms of legislation of the times permitted, a new bill was enacted, entitled an Act for binding out and settling such of the Inhabitants of Nova Scotia as are under age, and for maintaining the aged, sick and maimed at the charge of the Province. (Votes, p. 677, 685).
It was of this measure — the compulsory binding out to learn trades of the children of those who could not support them — that the exiles most loudly complained ; and the most elaborated remonstrance that is to be found on our records, was induced by it. It is a document of impassioned, and, to my mind,
