"The fear that the Acadians have of the Indians is the
controlling motive which makes them side with the French. The English,
having in view the conquest of Canada, wished to give the French of that
colony, in their conduct towards the Acadians, a striking example of
the mildness of their government. Without raising the fortune of any of
the inhabitants, they have supplied them for more than thirty-five years
with the necessaries of life, often on credit and with an excess of
confidence, without troubling their debtors, without pressing them,
without wishing to force them to pay. They have left them an appearance
of liberty so excessive that they have not intervened in their disputes
or even punished their crimes. They have allowed them to refuse with
insolence certain moderate rents payable in grain and lawfully due. They
have passed over in silence the contemptuous refusal of the Acadians to
take titles from them for the new lands which they chose to occupy.[76]
[Footnote 75: _La Jonquiere a Eveque de Quebec, 14 Juin, 1750. Memoire
du Roy pour servir d'Instruction au Comte de Raymond, commandant pour Sa
Majeste a l'Isle Royale_ [Cape Breton], _24 Avril, 1751_.]
[Footnote 76: See Appendix B.]
"We know very well," pursues Roma, "the fruits of this conduct in the
last war; and the English know it also. Judge then what will be the
wrath and vengeance of this cruel nation." The fruits to which Roma
alludes were the hostilities, open or secret, committed by the Acadians
against the English.
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