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that you are going to be deceived, and that instead of establishing yourselves in French territories, you will find that you are in the territories of His Britannic Majesty.*
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For, at present, against every treaty and every right, they have detachments in the heart of the province.
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When you pay attention to what I have just pointed out to you, you yourselves will see that you have been badly advised to choose this time to ask for your leave (conge). So it is impossible for us to grant you passports when we refuse them to all his majesty's subjects, and to everybody without distinction.
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Gentlemen from the district of Mines. Recently, we have good reason to complain of your deputies; they have been wanting in respect for the orders of the government. We have been obliged to make prisoners of them. Some inhabitants have complained of that proceeding in a very impudent manner. A letter has just been shown to me full of impertinence, without signature, addressed to the deputies, and another to the commander.
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The custom of having deputies was introduced for good reasons at a time when there were no other magistrates or officers of His Majesty in your departments. They were to publish decrees and to assist in the execution of the orders of Government. But when the deputies fail to respect the orders, and when the inhabitants treat their deputies with so much contempt, it would be better to put an end to a useless custom.
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You have at present, at Annapolis Royal, and at Mines, Commanders who belong to his Majesty's Council. You could apply to them in case of need; and they would find means to have the orders of the Government published, and to get them executed. Should it happen that you think you have cause of complaint against them, it is to us, and to the Council that you should apply. As it is not our wish, that those deputies who have failed in their respect to the Commander, and whom you yourselves treat so unworthily, should continue in that capacity, we advise you to choose no more of them, or only to make choice of those, who will do their duty properly"
* The Government of Canada at this time, while the two nations were at peace, had taken possession of all the territory now known as the Province of New Brunswick, by fortifying the isthmus of Chignecto and the mouth of the River St. John, under pretence that the peninsula of Nova Scotia only had been ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht; and French emissaries were inducing the Acadians to remove to the opposite side of the Bay of Fundy.
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