At Annapolis Royal, more than a hundred miles south of Monckton's camp, matters proceeded more slowly. Handfield, the commandant there, had decided to wait for the arrival of the promised transports before attempting to round up the inhabitants. Then, when his soldiers went forward on their mission up the river, no sound of human voice met their ears in any of the settlements. The inhabitants had hidden in the woods. Handfield appealed to Winslow, who was then at Grand Pre, for more troops to bring the people to reason. [Footnote: Winslow's Journal, part ii, p. 96.] But Winslow had no troops to spare. Handfield does not appear to have relished his task, which he described as a 'disagreeable and troublesome part of the service.' What induced the inhabitants to return to their homes is not clear, but early in the month of September they resumed their occupations. They remained unmolested until early in November, when a fresh detachment of troops arrived to assist in their removal. On December 4 over sixteen hundred men, women, and children were crowded into the transports, which lay off Goat Island and which four days later set sail at eight o'clock in the morning. Meanwhile Captain Murray of Fort Edward was doing his duty in the Pisiquid neighbourhood. On September 5 he wrote to Winslow at Grand Pre, only a few miles distant: 'I have succeeded finely and have got 183 men into my possession.' [Footnote: Winslow's Journal, part ii, p. 96.] But there was still much to be done. Three days later he wrote again: 'I am afraid there will be some lives lost before they are got together, for you know our soldiers hate them, and if they can find a pretence to kill them, they will.' Of the means Murray employed to accomplish his task we are not told, but he must have been exceedingly active up to October 14, for on that date nine hundred persons had been gathered into his net. His real troubles now began; he was short of provisions and without transports. At last two arrived, one of ninety tons, and the other of one hundred and fifty: these, however, would not accommodate half the people. Another sloop was promised, but it was slow in coming. He became alarmed. 'Good God, what can keep her!' he wrote. 'I earnestly entreat you to send her with all despatch... Then with the three sloops and more vessels I will put them aboard, let the consequence be what it will.' [Footnote: Ibid., p. 173.] He was as good as his word. On October 23 Winslow wrote: 'Captain Murray has come from Pisiquid with upwards of one thousand people in four vessels.' [Footnote: Ibid., p. 178.]