[Footnote 96:  Daudin, pretre, a Prevost, 23 Oct. 1753.  Prevost au Ministre, 24 Nov. 1753.]

The French officials would have been better pleased had the conduct of Cornwallis been such as to aid their efforts to alienate the Acadians; and one writer, while confessing the “favorable treatment” of the English towards the inhabitants, denounces it as a snare.[97] If so, it was a snare intended simply to reconcile them to English rule.  Nor was it without effect.  “We must give up altogether the idea of an insurrection in Acadia,” writes an officer of Cape Breton.  “The Acadians cannot be trusted; they are controlled by fear of the Indians, which leads them to breathe French sentiments, even when their inclinations are English.  They will yield to their interests; and the English will make it impossible that they should either hurt them or serve us, unless we take measures different from those we have hitherto pursued."[98]

[Footnote 97:  Memoire a presenter a la Cour, 1753.]

[Footnote 98:  Roma au Ministre, 11 Mars, 1750.]

During all this time, constant efforts were made to stimulate Acadian emigration to French territory, and thus to strengthen the French frontier.  In this work the chief agent was Le Loutre.  “This priest,” says a French writer of the time, “urged the people of Les Mines, Port Royal [Annapolis], and other places, to come and join the French, and promised to all, in the name of the Governor, to settle and support them for three years, and even indemnify them for any losses they might incur; threatening if they did not do as he advised, to abandon them, deprive them of their priests, have their wives and children carried off, and their property laid waste by the Indians."[99] Some passed over the isthmus to the shores of the gulf, and others made their way to the Strait of Canseau.  Vessels were provided to convey them, in the one case to Isle St. Jean, now Prince Edward Island, and in the other to Isle Royale, called by the English, Cape Breton.  Some were eager to go; some went with reluctance; some would scarcely be persuaded to go at all.  “They leave their homes with great regret,” reports the Governor of Isle St. Jean, speaking of the people of Cobequid, “and they began to move their luggage only when the savages compelled them."[100] These savages were the flock of Abbe Le Loutre, who was on the spot to direct the emigration.  Two thousand Acadians are reported to have left the peninsula before the end of 1751, and many more followed within the next two years.  Nothing could exceed the misery of a great part of these emigrants, who had left perforce most of their effects behind.  They became disheartened and apathetic.  The Intendant at Louisbourg says that they will not take the trouble to clear the land, and that some of them live, like Indians, under huts of spruce-branches.[101] The Governor of Isle St. Jean declares that they are dying of hunger.[102] Girard,