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From the Maccan River, Willard reached the sources of the Moose River and following that stream down arrived at the Bay of Fundy on August 9^th. He then continued by way of the shore passing through several small Acadian villages till on Monday the 11^th, he came to the Parish Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, which was situated near the shore at what is now known as Masstown. There he found Captain Malcolm and his party of forty men, who in pursuance to their orders, were awaiting him. The next day the party rested itself and ate heartily of the beef and the mutton which the French inhabitants supplied.

Since the time that Willard and his men had reached the Bay of Fundy, they were continually in contact with the French inhabitants and now looking back through the years it is pitiful to think of their kindness, simplicity and credulity. By them, Willard was freely supplied with beef, mutton, butter, milk and bread, nor did he hesitate to leave his sick soldiers in their care and protection. It is little wonder then that when on the 13^th, he met Lewis and his party about three miles on the road to Tatamagouche beyond the French village of Isgonish had opened his sealed orders he was astounded and shocked that they directed him to destroy the French habitations on the road to Tatamagouche, and at that village and at the places nearby.

Willard and his men were not professional soldiers, hardened in active campaigns or by long separation from their own families; they were men of the farm, the woods and the sea; men, who had recently left their own hearth stone and families, and who in spite of the bigotry and the hardness of their times were of warm hearts and generous feelings. They in pursuit of a great mission, had engaged to serve in war with the openly armed forces of their traditional enemy, but never had they contemplated to war upon unarmed men and defenceless women and to be the ruiners and the plunderers of a country. But Willard, though greatly surprised and shocked at his orders, had yet enough of the soldier in him to readily carry them out, although they went against his heart and his conscience.

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