July, 1728, to the Duke of Newcastle, with regard to the refusal of the French on the mainland to take the oath of allegiance, he informs His Grace that, “they want neither invitations nor promises from the Islands of Cape Breton and St. John’s for that pur- pose.” The purpose was, to quit their planta- tions and improvements in Nova Scotia, and to make new settlements in the territories belonging to France.

Lying, as it did,soclose to Chignecto and the English possessions on the mainland, it is not surprising that the authorities there should regard the Island of St. John’s with suspicion and alarm. The Indian inhabitants are said to have been a war-like race, though. if we were to judge by their descendants, it would be difficult to imagine anything of the kind. The French inhabitants themselves were a hardy people, inured to privation, who had suffered much, both real and fan- cied wrong, and both were largely under the influence of unscrupulous leaders, of whom Le Loutre was perhaps the most notorious, as well as the most to be feared. For years this man kept the colonies, both French and English, in a ferment. Possessing great in- fluence over the Indians and the French in- habitants, he was a veritable thorn in the side of the governor of Nova Scotia. The English authorities were kept in a continual state of alarm and unrest, and the Island of St. John’s was a centre from which danger

was always to be apprehended. Writing from-

Chebucto to the Duke of Bedford, on 11th September, 1749, Governor Cornwallis says: “I have intelligence from all parts of the province and from Cape Breton, that the In- dians of Acadia and St. John’s Island, head- ed by Loutre, design to molest us this win- ter. The French do everything in their power to excite them to it. The settlers

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. ‘1 5

don’t seem at all alarmed. All precautions that can be thought of are taken for their se- curity.”

Writing from Halifax to the Lords of Trade and Plantations, on the 17th October, of the same year, Cornwallis returns to the subject, as follows: “I acquainted you in my last, I was apprehensive that the Indians. called Micmacks, in this Peninsula, encour- aged and set on by the French, would give us trouble, as all my accounts from Cape Breton denoted it, and more, that they would attack the settlement—these Micmacks in- clude the Cape Sable, St. John’s Island, Cape Breton, and all inhabiting the peninsula. Le Louter, a priest sent from France as a mis- sionary to the Miclacks, is with .them, as good-for—nothing a scoundrel as ever lived.

“The St. John’s Indians I made peace with, and am glad to find by Your Lord- ship’s letter of the Ist August, it is agree- able to your way of thinking, their making submission to the King, before I would treat with them. * * * I intend, if possible, to keep up a good correspondence with the St. John’s Indians, a war-like people, though treaties with Indians are nothing—nothing but force will prevail.”

Even as late as I756, only two years be- fore the fall of Louisburg and the British oc- cupation of this Island, it was a subject of anxious thought, not only by the govemment of Nova Scotia, but also by the New Eng— land colonies, who recognized the impor- tance to themselves of British rule being maintained in what are now the Maritime Provinces of Canada. Being much better informed as to existing conditions, they were much more alive to the danger than were the Lords of Trade in London. Writing to Gov- ernor Lawrence, on 13th March of that year, Shirley, the famous governor of Massachu-