232 ‘The French in Prince Edward Island

quality of a missionary, if he is worthy of his name is to be an honest man, and the first duty of an honest man is an inviolable fidelity to his country.”’”°

It was the attempt to be faithful to their country that made these missionaries sometimes forget to be honest men. In attempting to unite the interests of the state and of religion they attempted the impos- sible. One cannot but admire their courage in the face of great danger and untold hardship but it is diffi- cult to repress the thought that their vision must have been clouded by the fogs from the Bay of Fundy. On the one hand they taught Christian charity and exemplified self-sacrifice; on the other they set the ignorant savage upon the unarmed set- tler and paid for his scalp. Some extenuation may be sought in the narrow bigotry of the age and in the weakness of the French forces in Acadia, yet when every such plea can be made one still has misgivings as to the gulf between patriotism and honesty.” But till the bitter end of the struggle the French and their missionaries were able to keep the Micmacs as their allies.

20 Can. Arch. Report, 1905, Vol. II, App. N, p. 350.

21'The New Englanders openly paid for Indian scalps at this

time; and the British used Indians against the Americans in the War of Independence.