CHAP T ER XV i Epilogue

THE conquest of 1758 and the transportation of the inhabitants to France meant the failure of French colonization in Isle Saint Jean in so far as the old idea of colonies d’exploitation was concerned, but it did not mean the extinction of the French race. The 200 or 300 Acadians who remained gathered such stray cattle and stores of grain as they could and managed to exist for a few years by means of fish and game. During the first two decades of Brit- ish rule, they lived more or less in.a state of fear and trembling until they found that their new masters were not disposed to treat them harshly, now that French power had been “extirpated from North America.” Further, the Acadians themselves, seeing that France had entirely abandoned them as well as their brothers of Quebec, sought wisdom from expe- diency and resigned themselves to their fate.

When, in 1767, Prince Edward Island was par- celled out among a number of landlords some of these decided that the easiest way to secure settlers would be to induce the dispossessed Acadians to become their tenants. In this way lots 17, 19, 24, and 43 be- came the new homes of the much wandering habitans. From that date they began to increase slowly but in recent years they have so multiplied that according to the census of 1921 they now number 11,971 per- sons, and constitute more than one-eighth of the