neighbors’ company as he well can."[279] Saul came at last with a shipload of provisions; but the lagging transports did not appear.  Winslow grew heart-sick at the daily sight of miseries which he himself had occasioned, and wrote to a friend at Halifax:  “I know they deserve all and more than they feel; yet it hurts me to hear their weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  I am in hopes our affairs will soon put on another face, and we get transports, and I rid of the worst piece of service that ever I was in.”

[Footnote 279:  Murray to Winslow, 26 Sept. 1755.]

After weeks of delay, seven transports came from Annapolis; and Winslow sent three of them to Murray, who joyfully responded:  “Thank God, the transports are come at last.  So soon as I have shipped off my rascals, I will come down and settle matters with you, and enjoy ourselves a little.”

Winslow prepared for the embarkation.  The Acadian prisoners and their families were divided into groups answering to their several villages, in order that those of the same village might, as far as possible, go in the same vessel.  It was also provided that the members of each family should remain together; and notice was given them to hold themselves in readiness.  “But even now,” he writes, “I could not persuade the people I was in earnest.”  Their doubts were soon ended.  The first embarkation took place on the eighth of October, under which date the Diary contains this entry:  “Began to embark the inhabitants who went off very solentarily [sic] and unwillingly, the women in great distress, carrying off their children in their arms; others carrying their decrepit parents in their carts, with all their goods; moving in great confusion, and appeared a scene of woe and distress."[280]

[Footnote 280:  In spite of Winslow’s care, some cases of separation of families occurred; but they were not numerous.]

Though a large number were embarked on this occasion, still more remained; and as the transports slowly arrived, the dismal scene was repeated at intervals, with more order than at first, as the Acadians had learned to accept their fate as a certainty.  So far as Winslow was concerned, their treatment seems to have been as humane as was possible under the circumstances; but they complained of the men, who disliked and despised them.  One soldier received thirty lashes for stealing fowls from them; and an order was issued forbidding soldiers or sailors, on pain of summary punishment, to leave their quarters without permission, “that an end may be put to distressing this distressed people.”  Two of the prisoners, however, while trying to escape, were shot by a reconnoitring party.