[Footnote 270:  Franquet, Journal, 1751, says of the Acadians:  “Ils aiment l’argent, n’ont dans toute leur conduite que leur interet pour objet, sont, indifferemment des deux sexes, d’une inconsideration dans leurs discours qui denote de la mechancete.”  Another observer, Diereville, gives a more favorable picture.]

When Monckton and the Massachusetts men laid siege to Beausejour, Governor Lawrence thought the moment favorable for exacting an unqualified oath of allegiance from the Acadians.  The presence of a superior and victorious force would help, he thought, to bring them to reason; and there were some indications that this would be the result.  A number of Acadian families, who at the promptings of Le Loutre had emigrated to Cape Breton, had lately returned to Halifax, promising to be true subjects of King George if they could be allowed to repossess their lands.  They cheerfully took the oath; on which they were reinstated in their old homes, and supplied with food for the winter.[271] Their example unfortunately found few imitators.

[Footnote 271:  Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 228.]

Early in June the principal inhabitants of Grand Pre and other settlements about the Basin of Mines brought a memorial, signed with their crosses, to Captain Murray, the military commandant in their district, and desired him to send it to Governor Lawrence, to whom it was addressed.  Murray reported that when they brought it to him they behaved with the greatest insolence, though just before they had been unusually submissive.  He thought that this change of demeanor was caused by a report which had lately got among them of a French fleet in the Bay of Fundy; for it had been observed that any rumor of an approaching French force always had a similar effect.  The deputies who brought the memorial were sent with it to Halifax, where they laid it before the Governor and Council.  It declared that the signers had kept the qualified oath they had taken, “in spite of the solicitations and dreadful threats of another power,” and that they would continue to prove “an unshaken fidelity to His Majesty, provided that His Majesty shall allow us the same liberty that he has [hitherto] granted us.”  Their memorial then demanded, in terms highly offensive to the Council, that the guns, pistols, and other weapons, which they had lately been required to give up, should be returned to them.  They were told in reply that they had been protected for many years in the enjoyment of their lands, though they had not complied with the terms on which the lands were granted; “that they had always been treated by the Government with the greatest lenity and tenderness, had enjoyed more privileges than other English subjects, and had been indulged in the free exercise of their religion;” all which they acknowledged to be true.  The Governor then told them that their conduct had been undutiful and ungrateful; “that they had discovered a