orders.  You know that we have done everything to secure to you not only the occupation of your lands, but the ownership of them forever.  We have given you also every possible assurance of the free and public exercise of the Roman Catholic religion.  But I declare to you frankly that, according to our laws, nobody can possess lands or houses in the province who shall refuse to take the oath of allegiance to his King when required to do so.  You know very well that there are ill-disposed and mischievous persons among you who corrupt the others.  Your inexperience, your ignorance of the affairs of government, and your habit of following the counsels of those who have not your real interests at heart, make it an easy matter to seduce you.  In your petitions you ask for a general leave to quit the province.  The only manner in which you can do so is to follow the regulations already established, and provide yourselves with our passport.  And we declare that nothing shall prevent us from giving such passports to all who ask for them, the moment peace and tranquillity are re-established."[104] He declares as his reason for not giving them at once, that on crossing the frontier “you will have to pass the French detachments and savages assembled there, and that they compel all the inhabitants who go there to take up arms” against the English.  How well this reason was founded will soon appear.

[Footnote 104:  The above passages are from two address of Cornwallis, read to the Acadian deputies in April and May, 1750.  The combined extracts here given convey the spirit of the whole.  See Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 185-190.]

Hopson, the next governor, described by the French themselves as a “mild and peaceable officer,” was no less considerate in his treatment of the Acadians; and at the end of 1752 he issued the following order to his military subordinates:  “You are to look on the French inhabitants in the same light as the rest of His Majesty’s subjects, as to the protection of the laws and government; for which reason nothing is to be taken from them by force, or any price set upon their goods but what they themselves agree to.  And if at any time the inhabitants should obstinately refuse to comply with what His Majesty’s service may require of them, you are not to redress yourself by military force or in any unlawful manner, but to lay the case before the Governor and wait his orders thereon."[105] Unfortunately, the mild rule of Cornwallis and Hopson was not always maintained under their successor, Lawrence.

[Footnote 105:  Public Documents of Nova Scotia, 197.]