|
150 |
NOVA SCOTIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY. |
|
|
|
|
tion and entertainment of the inhabitants. An alarm was taken by Mr. Bulkeley and Judge Deschamps; the publication was considered a personal injury, and an answer or refutation was immediately agreed upon between them. It was given with great ostentation in some of the following newspapers, which were put into my hands by the Judge, as a complete and satisfactory vindication of that measure.
|
|
|
|
When Messrs. Cochran and Howe began their magazine, in 1789, — not aware of the soreness of these people on the subject — they re-published the offensive piece. Mr. Bulkely and Judge Deschamps complained and were as displeased as if it had been a personal attack. An answer, as formerly, was resolved upon. At that time I had the foresaid above mentioned newspapers; and one morning, long before 7 o'clock, I was roused by a servant with a card from Judge Deschamps, requesting, in a very urgent manner, that I would deliver to him the papers and all other documents he had given me relative to the subject.
|
|
|
|
By the aid of these the following paper was drawn up, which, as I understood, was sent to the printing office in the handwriting of Mr. Bulkeley. As it was not Mr. Cochran's wish to create any enemies (and indeed his situation at the time would not admit of it), he prefaced Mr. Bulkeley's paper with the softening ,paragraph enclosed in the parenthesis — and without having traced the evidence, intimated a suspicion of Raynal's fidelity. Tho' I can take upon me — from a painful examination of the whole matter — to assert that Raynal neither knew nor suspected the tenth part of the distress of the Acadians. And that, excepting the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, I know of no act equally reprehensible as the Acadian removal, that can be laid to the charge of the French nation. In their colonies nothing was ever done that approaches it in cruelty and atrociousness.
A. B. ]
|
|
|
|
——————, Saturday, Aug. 18th, 1791.
|
|
|
|
The case of the Acadians stated.
|
|
|
|
(In our magazine for February last we inserted that part of the Abbe Raynal's history of the settlement in the East and West Indies — which relates to Nova Scotia. That author was certainly fonder of indulging a very happy and vigorous imagination than of searching with patience after the truth. This has led him to give a high and poetical coloring to every event that could interest the passions. Among many others of this sort, we apprehend, his fidelity may be somewhat questioned, in the account he has given of the removal of the French Neutrals, as they were called, from the Province. We, therefore, readily admit the following statement of the transaction, which we have received without any signature : — W. C.)
|
|
|
|
In 1713 Nova Scotia was solemnly ceded to the crown of Great Britain by France, together with the inhabitants, reserving the liberty to those who chose it, of removing with their effects, provid-
|
|