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NOVA SCOTIA DOCUMENTS. |
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None of the inhabitants appearing here on the aforesaid letter, I thought it was high time to do something to raise the authority of the Government which was sunk so low and become contemptible by their having escaped hitherto with impunity notwithstanding their having committed so many villanies and robberies as would be endless to relate.
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* * * * I must now beg your Grace's leave to Open a new scene of matters that happened upon the death of his late Majesty of blessed memory. After I had proclaimed his present Majesty, King George the 2nd both in Town and Garrison, with the usual solemnity, I tendered to both officers and soldiers the oaths appointed by law, which they took very cheerfully, and having summoned the Council, it was agreed to tender them likewise to the French Inhabitants of this River who had taken them to the late King, but because some malicious people had insinuated that the Oath taken by them to his late Majesty was conceived in such rigid terms that it was unjust to exact it of Roman Catholics, who on the other hand would unanimously concur to take the Oath of Allegiance; it was therefore thought meet to tender the same to them translated into French as follows vizt:
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Je promets & jure sincerement que je serai fidele & obeirai veritablement a sa Majeste Le Roy George Second.
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Ainsi Dieu me soit en aide.
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The Deputies desired me to set a day to assemble the Inhabitants at the Port and to give them an order for that purpose, which I ordered to be drawn and the same being read and examined in Council, was approved of and ordered to be forwarded to the Deputies Bourg Landry & Bourgeois, but they instead of complying therewith assembled the people two days successively up the River, where instead of persuading them to their duty by solid arguments of which they were not incapable, they frightened and terrified them, by representing the Oath so strong and binding that neither they nor their children should ever shake off the yoke, so that by their example and insinuations the whole body of the people almost to a man refused them, but upon certain conditions set forth in a paper the deputies presented me with, whereof I send your Grace a Copy No.5, (annexed to my order) which, being read in Council was judged so very insolent & undeserved at their hands, that it was ordered that Landry and Bourgois should be sent to prison, and laid in Irons as Ringleaders, where they continued some days, but were at last admitted to bail till His Majesty's pleasure therein should be
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