A Murray or a Dorchester would have humoured the people and would probably have kept them in allegiance. But this was an impossible task for Lawrence. He was unaccustomed to compromise. He kept before him the letter of the law, and believed that any deviation from it was fraught with danger. He entered upon his duties as administrator in the month of October 1753. Six weeks later he made a report on the condition of affairs in the province. This report contains one pregnant sentence. He is referring to the emigrant Acadians who had left their homes for French soil and were now wishing to come back, and he says: 'But Your Lordships may be assured they will never have my consent to return until they comply [take the oath] without any reservation whatever.' [Footnote: Lawrence to Lords of Trade, December 5, 1753.] This was the keynote of all Lawrence's subsequent action. The Acadians must take the oath without reserve, or leave the country. He does not appear to have given any consideration to the fact that for forty years the Lords of Trade had, for various motives, nursed the people, or that only two years before the Council at Halifax had declared the Acadians to be still entitled to the privileges accorded to them by the Treaty of Utrecht. To him the Acadians were as an enemy in the camp, and as such they were to be treated. The Lords of Trade partly acquiesced in Lawrence's reasoning, yet they warned him to be cautious. A year before they had announced that those who remained in the country were to be considered as holding good titles; but they now maintained that the inhabitants had 'in fact no right, but upon condition of taking the oath of allegiance absolute and unqualified.' Officials might be sent among them to inquire into their disputes, but 'the more we consider the point, the more nice and difficult it appears to us; for, as on the one hand great caution ought to be used to avoid giving alarm and creating such a diffidence in their minds as might induce them to quit the province, and by their numbers add strength to the French settlements, so on the other hand we should be equally cautious of creating an improper and false confidence in them, that by a perseverance in refusing to take the oath of allegiance, they may gradually work out in their own way a right to their lands and to the benefit and protection of the law, which they are not entitled to but on that condition.' [Footnote: Lords of Trade to Lawrence, March 4, 1754.]