Page:1898 NB Magazine.djvu/43
In the diary of John Thomas, a-surgeon in Winslow's expedition in 1755 against Fort Beausejour, we find on the 13th of October the following entry:
"Captain Rowse sailed this morning (from Cumberland Basin) with the fleet, consisting of ten sails, under his command. They carried nine hundred and sixty French prisoners with them, bound for South Carolina and Georgia"
Honorable Brook Watson, who at the time of the expulsion was a resident of Fort Lawrence, a short distance from Amherst, on the north-western border of Nova Scotia, speaking of the Acadians of Beaubassin and Beasejour districts, in a letter dated London, Eng., 1st of July, 1791, to Rev. Dr. Andrew Brown, says: "In 1755 I was a very humble instrument in sending eighteen hundred of these suffering mortals out of the province." Here we have a difference of 840 as compared with the number given by Thomas. But as there is a blank in the latter's diary during seven days, namely, the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th of November, it must be during this week that the second convoy of Acadian prisoners from the neighborhood of Beausejour sailed from Cumberland Basin. Adding these 840 to the 50 deputies sent off from George's Island in Halifax Harbor to North Carolina, on board the sloop "Providence" in the beginning of October, to the 6,031 already mentioned, we have the grand total of 6,822 Acadians who were transported from the province of Nova Scotia. We are sure there was at least that number; and as several other deportations took place later on, we can in safety say 7,000, deducting even the number of those who took possession of the transports carrying them into exile.
About the 9th of December Belliveau and his companions left their hiding place at French Cross to seek a safer one. Fortunately they had a few fishing boats which had not been delivered to Major John Handfield, commanding officer at Annapolis Royal, though so