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In order to understand the events, which in the carrying out of Morris’ plan were to happen at Tatamagouche and elsewhere, it is necessary for us to know something of this plan and of the situation generally throughout the Province, as it then appeared to the Council. The problem of the Acadians was not a military problem; it was the infinitely more difficult and vexatious problem of a native people living in a conquered, wilderness country now threatened by a counter-invasion and an attack from the nation of the conquered. The British hold on the province was tenuous, for other than those at Halifax, Canso, Annapolis Royal, Dartmouth, Lunenburg and Pisiquid, the inhabitants of the Province were almost to a man sympathetic to the French cause. And, while elsewhere the British forces themselves suffered disappointments and unexpected reverses, the French in the great fortresses of Quebec and of Louisbourg and across the Missaquash had been reinforced so that an imminent invasion of Nova Scotia was with adequate cause acutely feared. While the Acadians numbered only about seven thousand,* throughout the whole province and few, if any were armed, their capacity and ability to cause trouble in the event of a French invasion was out of proportion to their number because of their inestimable value to the invader as guides, pilots, guerillas and spies, and from the fact that off their farms they could have furnished food and supplies which were not available to the British. That in a close struggle they might prove the decisive factor, if they so desired, and their presence might place the whole province in jeopardy was the fear of the Council. And it cannot be said that this fear was without some basis. *Estimates of the Acadian population vary greatly, in fact no accurate figures are available. Seven thousand has been generally accepted by historians as a probable estimate of the Acadian population. Back |
