But when the people
returned they were held as vassals; and many of them
afterwards were either sent out of the province to France
or England, or left it voluntarily for St Pierre and
Miquelon or the West Indies.
Other fugitives of 1755, fifteen hundred, according to
one authority, [Footnote: Placide Gaudet, 'Acadian
Genealogy and Notes,' Canadian Archives Report, 1905.
vol. ii, part iii, Appendix A, p. xv.] succeeded in
reaching Quebec. Here their lot was a hard one. Bigot
and his myrmidons plundered everybody, and the starving
Acadians did not escape. They had managed to bring with
them a little money and a few household treasures, of
which they were soon robbed. For a time they were each
allowed but four ounces of bread a day, and were reduced,
it is said, to searching the gutters for food. To add to
their miseries smallpox broke out among them and many
perished from the disease. After Quebec surrendered and
the victorious British army entered the gates, some two
hundred of them, under the leadership of a priest, Father
Coquart, who apparently had a passport from General
Murray, marched through the wilderness to the headwaters
of the St John and went down to Fort Frederick at the
mouth of that river.
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