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rejoicing on this Christmas day over the result of their inhuman and cruel work. The heart-rending sufferings of the unfortunate Acadians were nothing to Lawrence and his associates. They thought the Acadian race was forever banished from Acadie. How greatly mistaken they were!

Sad indeed must have been Christmas day for Belliveau and his companions on Piau's Island! No doubt they asked the Child of Bethlehem to give them strength and courage to overcome the ordeals through which they had to pass, and to bless them. Their hope was in God alone, and in Him they found the strength to battle in their struggle for life.

These unfortunate ones, poorly clad, sleeping on beds of fir twigs spread on bare ground for pillows, often covered with snow after stormy nights, destitute of proper aliment and starving, were often visited by the angel of death, which mercifully ended the sufferings of many. Thus they passed the bleak winter of 1755–6.

Spring came at last, and Pierre Belliveau and his companions bade adieu to the small island which had given them shelter, and embarked in their frail fishing boats to seek another place of refuge. I shall not follow them at this time, in their wanderings from place to place until at last, after thirteen years of indescribable want and hardship and endurance, they were allowed to settle on lands allotted to them. Nor shall I tell how Clare settlement was founded. This event occurred twelve years and a half after the departure of Belliveau and his party. For twenty years, from 1771 to 1791, the first settlers of Clare buried their dead alongside of those interred there during the winter of 1755–6, and thus Piau's Island became the first Acadian burial ground in Digby county. Its name is now in oblivion, the island itself is no more, and it forms, as already