At length the Indians made peace, or pretended to do so.  The chief of Le Loutre’s mission, who called himself Major Jean-Baptiste Cope, came to Halifax with a deputation of his tribe, and they all affixed their totems to a solemn treaty.  In the next summer they returned with ninety or a hundred warriors, were well entertained, presented with gifts, and sent homeward in a schooner.  On the way they seized the vessel and murdered the crew.  This is told by Prevost, intendant at Louisbourg, who does not say that French instigation had any part in the treachery.[89] It is nevertheless certain that the Indians were paid for this or some contemporary murder; for Prevost, writing just four weeks later, says:  “Last month the savages took eighteen English scalps, and Monsieur Le Loutre was obliged to pay them eighteen hundred livres, Acadian money, which I have reimbursed him."[90]

[Footnote 89:  Prevost au Ministre, 12 Mars, 1753; Ibid., 17 July, 1753.  Prevost was ordonnateur, or intendant, at Louisbourg.  The treaty will be found in full in Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 683.]

[Footnote 90:  Prevost au Ministre, 16 Aout, 1753.]

From the first, the services of this zealous missionary had been beyond price.  Prevost testifies that, though Cornwallis does his best to induce the Acadians to swear fidelity to King George, Le Loutre keeps them in allegiance to King Louis, and threatens to set his Indians upon them unless they declare against the English.  “I have already,” adds Prevost, “paid him 11,183 livres for his daily expenses; and I never cease advising him to be as economical as possible, and always to take care not to compromise himself with the English Government."[91] In consequence of “good service to religion and the state,” Le Loutre received a pension of eight hundred livres, as did also Maillard, his brother missionary on Cape Breton.  “The fear is,” writes the Colonial Minister to the Governor of Louisbourg, “that their zeal may carry them too far.  Excite them to keep the Indians in our interests, but do not let them compromise us.  Act always so as to make the English appear as aggressors."[92]

[Footnote 91:  Ibid., 22 Juillet, 1750.]

[Footnote 92:  Le Ministre au Comte de Raymond, 21 Juillet, 1752.  It is curious to compare these secret instructions, given by the Minister to the colonial officials, with a letter which the same Minister, Rouille, wrote ostensibly to La Jonquiere, but which was really meant for the eye of the British Minister at Versailles, Lord Albemarle, to whom it was shown in proof of French good faith.  It was afterwards printed, long with other papers, in a small volume called Precis des Faits, avec Pieces justificatives which was sent by the French Government to all the courts of Europe to show that the English alone were answerable for the war.  The letter, it is needless to say, breathes the highest sentiments of international honor.]