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Our savages appeared displeased at not having an opportunity to explain themselves, or to make their representations, after having taken the trouble to come so great a distance. They complained of this even to Mr. Hamilton. Saturday last — a Saint's day with us — Mr. Hussey wrote to inform me that he was going to send a boat, & offered to forward my letters to you; but two hours after, Captain Baptiste Cope arrived from Cobequid; he had gone to Bay Verte, and had informed the village of savages in that place that a hundred of the English had left Halifax and crossed the woods as far as Chigabenakady, the place of my mission; that they would have been much to be pitied had they not found houses of the inhabitants, where provisions such as beef, mutton &c. were furnished them.
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I confess, Sir, that the savages are much surprised at this step, and that it should be taken at a time when it is proposed on both sides to treat of a durable peace. But what astonishes them still more, is the document which Mr. Hussey gave to some of the refugees on the tenth of the present month. This document states that he, Mr. Hussey, is ordered by you Sir, to declare to all the French inhabitants who have abandoned their habitations, and to all the others who have taken the oath of allegiance to his Britannic Majesty, that their oath continues in force as it has always done, and that nobody can annul it without the permission of the king of England, and that, if they be taken in arms against his Britannic Majesty in any place whatever, they shall be treated and punished as criminals. This document, which it does not suit my purpose just now to discuss, having come to the knowledge of our savages, this Baptiste Cope, another mikmak who speaks French, and Toubick, chiefs of the Medoctek savages of the river St. John, undertook on Sunday last, after high mass, to
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