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Judge Savary's theory as correct. The very fact that he called himself the Sieur La Verdure seems to me to be some proof that he was Scotch for every man who was a land owner in Scotland at that time would insist on being designated by the title of his property. That custom exists to a very large extent at the present day in Scotland.

I may say here that I have no theory on the subject of the origin of the Melansons, and do not care a straw whether they were French or Scotch. I do not look upon an affidavit made one hundred and forty years after the event it undertakes to relate as a very good proof of any statement. Joseph le Blanc and Jean Baptiste le Blanc when they made their statement in 1767 as to the original Melanson having come from Scotland must have relied on family tradition, and such traditions are always liable to serious errors. They may, however, have been right as to the fact stated that Melanson came from Scotland, but this Pierre Melanson who married Anne Mius, was only fifty-four years old in 1686, and must therefore have been only an infant when Sir William Alexander's Port Royal colony was broken up. This rather takes the edge off Judge Savary's confident assertion with regard to Pierre Melanson having joined the French colony, "emoraced the faith of his ancestors and married the Acadian lady mentioned in the affidavit." If Pierre Melanson came from Scotland it must have been as an infant in arms, and there therefore must have been an older Melanson, his father, who had belonged to Sir William Alexander's colony. This view is further supported by the tact that Pierre Melanson's brother Charles was only twenty-eight years old when the census of 1671 was taken and must therefore have been born about the year 1642. I have no doubt that the La Verdure who is mentioned in the Port Royal