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The Tintamares ask the opinion of the parish as to their rendering assistance to the Inhabitants, who implore help.
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Indorsed — Request of the Inhabitants of Cobequit.
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The Inhahitants of Acadia to the French King.
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(Tyrrell's Papers.)
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(Translated from the French.)
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SIRE, —
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The French Acadians, catholics, implore your majesty's powerful protection. The peninsula, which they inhabit, has been ceded to the crown of England by the treaty of Utrecht, confirmed, it is said, by that of Aix la Chapelle. By the former treaty, they are to enjoy the free exercise of their religion, in case they remain in this province; and they have the liberty for a year, of leaving it, with all their personal property.
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Far from limiting these conditions, the English government has appeared to grant them still more favorable ones. First, in not demanding from them any oath, or any engagement during the twelve years that have followed the peace of Utrecht; but still more, by the clauses that the government itself inserted in 1727, in the oath which it demanded. These clauses cannot be separated from the oath; and, both the inhabitants in accepting them, and the government in granting them, in the name of King George the Second, have done nothing but what was a natural consequence of the treaty of Utrecht, and at the same time conformable to the laws of Great Britain, where acts, proposed by the people, acquire, when they are approved by Royal authority, a force which the king himself cannot take away from them. Mr. Cornwallis, the new governor of Acadie, intends, however, to oblige all the inhabitants to take a new oath without conditions, and announces to them by the same order a course quite contrary to that of his predecessors, to which the petitioners have declared that they could not submit.
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1. As to the article concerning religion, it appears that the English governor, wishing to undertake the providing of priests, and not being willing even that these new missionaries should recognize the authority of the Bishop of Quebec, has sought only the means of entirely depriving the people of them.
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2. By the obligation to make war, which he wishes to
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