No preparations had been made for their settlement elsewhere; nor did they receive any compensation for their property from which they were forced, or that had been wickedly destroyed. In a starving and penniless state, they were put ashore in small groups at different points along the coast of New England, where many of them perished through the hardships they endured. A pathetic representation of their wrongs was addressed to the English government, and by reference to solemn treaties made between them and the provincial government, they proved their banishment to be "as faithless as it was cruel." "No attention, however," says Marcus Wilson, "was paid to this document, and so guarded a silence was preserved by the government of Nova Scotia upon the subject of the removal of the Acadians, that the records of the province make no allusion whatever to the event." After the close of the French and Indian war, France ceded all her possessions in Canada to victorious England. The case of the Acadians was again brought before the English government, but no compensation was ever allowed them for the outrages committed against them. The property of which they were ruthlessly plundered was never restored. They were allowed to return to the province, and, on taking the customary oaths, could receive lands; but of the eighteen thousand that were banished, less than two thousand returned: Still stands the forest primeval; but under the shade of its branches Dwells another race, with other customs and language. Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom. For such atrocious acts as these, we find no apologist among our historians. On every hand they meet with execration. Such wanton cruelty--such palpable violations of human rights are stains upon the escutcheon of the nation that permits them to be perpetrated within her borders.