The New England men pitched
their tents on shore, while the sloops that had brought them slept on
the soft bed of tawny mud left by the fallen tide.
Winslow found a warm reception, for Murray and his officers had been
reduced too long to their own society not to welcome the coming of
strangers. The two commanders conferred together. Both had been ordered
by Lawrence to "clear the whole country of such bad subjects;" and the
methods of doing so had been outlined for their guidance. Having come to
some understanding with his brother officer concerning the duties
imposed on both, and begun an acquaintance which soon grew cordial on
both sides, Winslow embarked again and retraced his course to Grand Pre,
the station which the Governor had assigned him. "Am pleased," he wrote
to Lawrence, "with the place proposed by your Excellency for our
reception [_the village church_]. I have sent for the elders to remove
all sacred things, to prevent their being defiled by heretics." The
church was used as a storehouse and place of arms; the men pitched their
tents between it and the graveyard; while Winslow took up his quarters
in the house of the priest, where he could look from his window on a
tranquil scene. Beyond the vast tract of grassland to which Grand Pre
owed its name, spread the blue glistening breast of the Basin of Mines;
beyond this again, the distant mountains of Cobequid basked in the
summer sun; and nearer, on the left, Cape Blomedon reared its bluff head
of rock and forest above the sleeping waves.
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