So far as Winslow was
concerned, their treatment seems to have been as humane as was possible
under the circumstances; but they complained of the men, who disliked
and despised them. One soldier received thirty lashes for stealing fowls
from them; and an order was issued forbidding soldiers or sailors, on
pain of summary punishment, to leave their quarters without permission,
"that an end may be put to distressing this distressed people." Two of
the prisoners, however, while trying to escape, were shot by a
reconnoitring party.
At the beginning of November Winslow reported that he had sent off
fifteen hundred and ten persons, in nine vessels, and that more than six
hundred still remained in his district.[281] The last of these were not
embarked till late in December. Murray finished his part of the work at
the end of October, having sent from the district of Fort Edward eleven
hundred persons in four frightfully crowded transports.[282] At the
close of that month sixteen hundred and sixty-four had been sent from
the district of Annapolis, where many others escaped to the woods.[283]
A detachment which was ordered to seize the inhabitants of the district
of Cobequid failed entirely, finding the settlements abandoned. In the
country about Fort Cumberland, Monckton, who directed the operation in
person, had very indifferent success, catching in all but little more
than a thousand.[284] Le Guerne, missionary priest in this neighborhood,
gives a characteristic and affecting incident of the embarkation.
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