It is estimated that there were at the time of the
expulsion ten or eleven thousand under the British flag,
and four or five thousand in Ile St Jean and elsewhere
on French territory. About six thousand were deported,
as we have seen, and scattered over the British colonies.
Undoubtedly a great number of Americans of to-day are
descendants of those exiles, but, except at the mouth of
the Mississippi, they are merged in the general population
and their identity is lost. Neither can we tell how many
of those who found their way to Old France remained there
permanently. For upwards of twenty years the French
government was concerned in finding places for them. Some
were settled on estates; some were sent to Corsica;
others, as late as 1778, went to Louisiana. Nor can we
estimate the number of Acadians in the province of Quebec,
for no distinction has been made between them and the
general French-Canadian population. For the Maritime
Provinces, however, we have the count of the census of
1911.
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