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NOVA SCOTIA DOCUMENTS. |
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to His Majesty's express orders as has been done by one Ensign Wroth of my Regiment, a copy whereof I could not omit laying before Your Grace. That same gentleman is now in England, gone home (as I am told) to demand great matters for his good service; how far they will be thought such I submit, but were it my case to have presumed to make use of the King's name, without his authority, I should expect a more suitable reward.
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Having finished with the people of this River I must wait the breaking up of the Winter to open a communication with the other settlements up the Bay of Fundy, from whence I daily expect their deputies, thro' the Woods, with assurances of the readiness of their people to submit in like manner when called upon, where I judge it necessary for me to be in person for the solemnity to give them the Oath as I have done to all these and then shall return to Canso where I shall be expected. * * *
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with all duty and Respect &c.
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R. PHILIPPS.
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His Grace
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The Duke of Newcastle, &c. &c.
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Mr. Secretary Popple to Govr. Philipps.
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WHITEHALL,
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20 May 1730.
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SIR, —
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You will perceive by the first paragraph of the letter from My Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations to you of this days date that their Lordships wish the Oath which the French Inhabitants at Annapolis have voluntarily taken had been in more explicit Terms, and therefore I am to observe to you that by the words of that Oath, the French do not promise to be faithful to His Majesty. The Oath indeed seems intended to have been a Translation of the English Oath of Allegiance, but the different Idiom of the two languages has given it another turn, for the particle "To" in the English Oath, being omitted in the French Translation, it stands a simple promise of fidelity without saying to whom, for as the word "Fidelle" can only refer to a dative case and "obeirai" governs an accusative, King George has not a proper security given to him by the first part of this Oath, and it is to be feared the French Jesuits may explain this
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