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ancestors, from whence they were transported by M. Bougainville over an immense tract of ocean to the frozen regions of the South, there to begin a settlement on the Falkland Islands; but here the same inexorable fate pursued them. Compelled to perpetual migration they were soon again expelled, for the complaisance of France and the timidity of Britain yielded these islands to the haughty dominion of Spain.
But as few destructions are so general that no remnant escapes, so multitudes of the Acadians concealed themselves in the country or retired to Canada till the tempest was over. Several hundred of these people still remain in the province, highly disaffected during the war to the British interest and now, at the conclusion of hostilities, as greatly disgusted with the monarch of France for not restoring them to their former estates.
When the Island of St. Johns was taken by the British forces, in 1759 (if I rightly recollect), above 4,000 of these Acadians were found to have retired from the continent during the invasion from New England, where they had begun new settlements, but they could not escape transportation.
Many of these people, especially about Annapolis, lived to behold a surprizing reverse of fortune. Some of those very persons who, in their younger years, were employed to transport the Acadians from Nova Scotia, have themselves been compelled to take refuge here and to receive the offices of hospitality and neighbourhood from those they had formerly injured and ruined."
[Note.] This finishes Mr. Bailey's description of the Acadians: his description of the Loyalists will form the subject of another paper.
In the anonymous pamphlet "An Account of the Present State of Nova Scotia," already mentioned in this article, there is a