To render this scheme of tyrannical banishment completely effective, further treachery was necessary. In each district the people were commanded to meet at a certain place and day on important business, the nature of which was carefully concealed from them, until they were assembled and surrounded by English troops; then the inhuman edict of banishment was announced to the heart-broken peasants. Very little time was allowed them for preparation. In mournful crowds they were driven to the beach. Women with white faces pressed their babes to their hearts; children dumb with terror clung to their parents; the aged and the infirm as well as the young and strong shared the common fate. At the large village of Grand Pre, when the moment for embarkation arrived, the young men, who were placed in the front, refused to move; but files of troops with fixed bayonets forced obedience. As soon as they were on board the British shipping, heavy columns of black smoke ascending from Grand Pre announced to the wretched Acadians the destruction of their lovely village. The embarkation of these peasants, and the burning of Grand Pre is thus described by Longfellow: Thus to the Gaspereau's mouth moved on that mournful procession. There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of embarking. Busily plied the freighted boats; and in the confusion Wives were torn from their husbands, and mothers, too late, saw their children Left on the land, extending their arms with wildest entreaties. * * * * * * * * * * * Suddenly rose from the South a light, as in Autumn the blood red Moon climbs the crystal walls of heaven, and o'er the horizon Titan-like, stretches its hundred hands upon mountain and meadow, Seizing the rocks and the rivers, and piling huge shadows together; Broader and ever broader it gleamed on the roofs of the village, Gleamed on the sky and the sea, and the ships that lie in the road stead. Columns of shining smoke uprose and flashes of flame were Thrust through their folds and withdrawn, like the quivering hands of a martyr. Then as the winds seized the gleeds and the burning thatch, and, uplifting, Whirled them aloft through the air, at once from a hundred housetops Started the sheeted smoke with flashes of flame intermingled. These things beheld in dismay the crowd on the shore and on shipboard. Speechless at first they stood, then cried aloud in their anguish, "_We shall behold no more our homes in the village of Grand Pre_." The property which had before escaped the hands of the spoilers was now laid waste on the plea of discouraging the return of the exiles, who, through their blinding tears, saw the land of their homes and their hopes fade from view.