Page:1898 NB Magazine.djvu/237

Melanson, who had come from Scotland to Port Royal. He also cites an affidavit sworn in the same month and year by Jean Baptiste LeBlanc, who says that Pierre Melanson had come from Scotland, and had been married, after abjuring Protestantism, to Anne Mius, of Port Royal. Nevertheless, I believe for reasons stated in my notes in the December number of the New Brunswick Magazine, that Pierre Melanson was of French extraction, and not remotely so. Considerable bodies of French troops were sent to Scotland by Henry II. and Francis II. of France, to assist the regents and promote the interests of Mary, Queen of Scots, during her minority, aid in quelling Protestant insurrections, and otherwise further the views of the French nation then in alliance with Scotland. From 1547 to 1560 quite a number of important posts in Scotland were occupied by French troops, and Dean Ramsay in his "Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Manners" attributes to this element in the population of that day several words and phrases obviously of French origin still in common use in certain parts of Scotland. It would seem from this that some of these Frenchmen remained and settled in the country. I would suggest that a Melanson was among these, that he married a Scotch woman and became a Protestant, and that one of his descendants, Peter (or Pierre) Melanson came to Nova Scotia with Sir William Alexander, who founded his colony under the authority of Queen Mary's son, James I. of England; and that this Pierre Melanson afterwards, with the Scotch Colinson or Colleson, joined the French colony, embraced the faith of his ancestors, and married the Acadian lady mentioned in the affidavit. Or Pierre may have been the son or grandson of a Huguenot who had taken refuge in Scotland.