[Footnote 80:  La Jonquiere au Ministre, 9 Oct. 1749.  See Appendix B.]

He kept his word, and so did the missionaries.  The Indians gave great trouble on the outskirts of Halifax, and murdered many harmless settlers; yet the English authorities did not at first suspect that they were hounded on by their priests, under the direction of the Governor of Canada, and with the privity of the Minister at Versailles.  More than this; for, looking across the sea, we find royalty itself lending its august countenance to the machination.  Among the letters read before the King in his cabinet in May, 1750, was one from Desherbiers, then commanding at Louisbourg, saying that he was advising the Acadians not to take the oath of allegiance to the King of England; another from Le Loutre, declaring that he and Father Germain were consulting together how to disgust the English with their enterprise of Halifax; and a third from the Intendant, Bigot, announcing that Le Loutre was using the Indians to harass the new settlement, and that he himself was sending them powder, lead, and merchandise, “to confirm them in their good designs."[81]

[Footnote 81:  Resume des Lettres lues au Travail du Roy, Mai, 1750.]

To this the Minister replies in a letter to Desherbiers:  “His Majesty is well satisfied with all you have done to thwart the English in their new establishment.  If the dispositions of the savages are such as they seem, there is reason to hope that in the course of the winter they will succeed in so harassing the settlers that some of them will become disheartened.”  Desherbiers is then told that His Majesty desires him to aid English deserters in escaping from Halifax.[82] Supplies for the Indians are also promised; and he is informed that twelve medals are sent him by the frigate “La Mutine,” to be given to the chiefs who shall most distinguish themselves.  In another letter Desherbiers is enjoined to treat the English authorities with great politeness.[83]

[Footnote 82:  In 1750 nine captured deserters from Phillips’s regiment declared on their trial that the French had aided them and supplied them all with money. Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 193.]

[Footnote 83:  Le Ministre a Desherbiers, 23 Mai, 1750; Ibid., 31 Mai, 1750.]

When Count Raymond took command at Louisbourg, he was instructed, under the royal hand, to give particular attention to the affairs of Acadia, especially in two points,—­the management of the Indians, and the encouraging of Acadian emigration to countries under French rule.  “His Majesty,” says the document, “has already remarked that the savages have been most favorably disposed.  It is of the utmost importance that no means be neglected to keep them so.  The missionaries among them are in a better position than anybody to contribute to this end, and His Majesty has reason to be satisfied with the pains they take therein.  The Sieur de