So for a time poor, little, hunted Margot found peace and a refuge with her country people, but only for a time. When in a few months news of Lawrence’s return with a larger force reached the ears of Le Loutre he sent forth his Micmacs to destroy the cluster of homes yet remaining on the English side of the water. The Acadians, caring not much for fighting any one, refused to obey his mandate and take arms against the redcoats, so fled in helpless terror, some to Halifax and Annapolis, but the larger number across the Missaguash. Whether Le Loutre honestly desired to found a settlement in this locality, or merely desired to vent his hatred for the English, cannot be rightly known; at all events his calculations were at fault regarding a new settlement. The French shore was already crowded, and if he really entertained hopes of filling up the marsh and turning it into fertile land for the benefit of the refugees, these hopes were defeated by the corrupt practices of his own government, which cared not at all for the welfare of the unhappy Acadians, but used them merely as tools. Half clothed and half starved, the men were at once put to hard, labor, with scanty or no remuneration. The strong new fort of Beauséjour, built in opposition to the less imposing one of Fort St. Lawrence, was the handiwork of Acadian refugees. Even then they might not have fared so ill had the supplies actually sent by the French government ever reached their rightful destination, but this was far from being the case. Official corruption, bad as it was throughout New France, was worse, probably, at Beauséjour than elsewhere. One of the most incompetent and unworthy of the numerous “office seekers,” to use a modern term, was in command there, and the “spoils system” was at its height upon the shores of the Missaguash. Vergor, the commandant, applied but a small portion of the food and clothing to the uses for which they were intended, and sent the large remainder back to Quebec, or to Louisbourg, where his confederates sold them, greatly to his and their profit, but not at all to that of the poor Acadians.