Colonel Arbuthnot, the British
commandant there, treated them generously. In 1761,
however, many Acadians at the St John were seized and
deported to Halifax, where they were held as prisoners
of war, but were provided with rations and given 'good
wages for road-making.' [Footnote: MacMechan in Canada
and its Provinces, vol. xiii, p. 115.] Of those who
escaped this deportation, some established themselves on
the Kennebecasis river and some went up the St John to
St Anne's, now Fredericton. But even here the Acadians
were not to have a permanent home. Twenty years later,
when the war of the Revolution ended and land was needed
for the king's disbanded soldiers, the lands of the
Acadians were seized. Once more the unfortunate people
sought new homes, and found them at last along the banks
of Chaleur Bay and of the Madawaska, where thousands of
their descendants now rudely cultivate the fields and
live happy, contented lives.
The deportation did not bring peace to Nova Scotia.
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