continent to British rule. All these facts require to be stated when the deportation of the Acadians has to be considered. What else could be done with them in this crisis? From the period when Cornwallis first arrived, in 1749, it was the one question: how to act with a body of men disloyal to the country as it was governed. Too weak to obtain a national standing, but constantly intriguing to injure the authority they lived under but would not recognize; refusing all efforts of conciliation; and, with the guarantee of possessing personal liberty, the free practice of their religion, the enjoyment of their property, they still declined to give the slightest assurance of good behaviour or fidelity. They refused even to furnish supplies to the British garrison, and they ranged themselves actually on the side of the French expeditions. They encouraged the savage to rob, and to plunder, and to murder. They complacently looked on while a vessel was looted under their eyes, and at the same time they were subject to no direct tax and had every privilege a loyal subject could ask. European writers who have alluded to this proceeding have dwelt much on the peaceful lives and the quiet, primitive habits of most of those who suffered. That fact has never been disputed. But poetry has endeavoured to sublimate their virtues to a height they never reached. The Acadians lived in rude plenty, unmarked by the least culture. Their prejudices were only developed among themselves. They were litigious and grasping, and French writers of that date complain that the specie which they received never left their possession, for they held it back for the hour of difficulty, which would have been in no way unwelcome if it ended in driving from their midst those who, with all the exaggeration on the subject, could not be called their oppressors. In September, 1755, a considerable number of the most troublesome were seized, arbitrarily, undoubtedly, and banished from the country. What the number was which were thus scattered and shipped in transports it is hard to state. Many were left behind, as the despatches of subsequent Governors clearly establish. In Grand Pré 1,925 were collected. At Annapolis and Cumberland many took to the woods. I cannot form any other opinion than that the number 5,000 is an exaggeration. Among the papers at the Colonial Office or at Halifax the true state of the case may be found. I am quite unable, from what I can learn, to give any estimate, but the evidence leads me to think that probably less than 3,000 were so deported. A melancholy fate of suffering, sorrow and privation; for these poor creatures were sent, homeless and destitute, to other States; but there was no unnecessary hardship and cruelty shown, and their condition was not worse than that of the immigrant who in old days sought our shores.