"As their numbers amount to near
seven thousand persons, the driving them off with leave to go whither
they pleased would have doubtless strengthened Canada with so
considerable a number of inhabitants." Bryant says: "Seven thousand
probably represented with sufficient accuracy the total French
population of Acadia in 1755; but the entire number of the exiled did
not exceed, if Minot be correct, two thousand, of whom many
subsequently returned to Acadia."
Five years after the departure of the exiles a fleet of twenty-two
vessels sailed from Connecticut for Grand Pré with a large number of
colonists, who took possession of the deserted farms. They found sixty
ox carts and yokes, while on the edge of woods of the inland country and
in sheltered places heaps of bones told of cattle which had perished of
starvation and cold after their owners were forced to leave them to such
a fate. A few straggling families of the Acadians were also found, who
had escaped from the search of the soldiers, and had lived in hiding in
the wilds of the back country for five years, and during that time had
not tasted bread.
CLARE
"Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic
Linger a few Acadian peasants, whose fathers from exile
Wandered back to their native land to die in its bosom.
In the fisherman's cot the wheel and the loom are still busy,
Maidens still wear their Norman caps and their kirtles of homespun,
And by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story."
Resolved to see these curious "Clare settlements," extending for fifty
miles on the coast, where descendants of the French Acadians live in
peace and unity, we reluctantly take our departure at last from dear old
Annapolis, which has been our restful haven so long, and where we have
been reviving school days in studying history and geography seasoned
with poetry and romance.
