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In the following years the Island colony prospered moderately well. In l730 two families from Malpeque produced 40 hogsheds of grain. By I744, when Louisbourg and hence its protectorate the Isle de St. Jean fell into the hands of the British, there were l3 Acadian families at Malpeque At this time there was one Acadian family on the

Belmont peninsula.

In I752 Louisbourg and Isle de St. Jean were given back to France and the officials conducted a census to determine the resources of the Colony. It was found that there were 201 people consisting of 32 families in the Malpeque area; of these 30 people lived on the Belmont peninsula. In I753 there was an increase of IO people on this peninsul

In 1758 during the Seven Years War (1756-1763) the British captured Louisbourg; as Isle de St. Jean was a dependency of Louisbourg it was also included in the articles of capitulation which transferred Louisbourg to the British.

The British decided that the French people in Louisbourg and Isle de St. Jean be deported to France. As the Island had become home to these French settlers, they petitioned the British to let them remain. The British, however, were determined and rounded up 4,700 Island settlers and sent them back to France. Only 30 families escaped These are the ancestors of our present Acadian

population of l7,000 people.

The families in the Belmont area probably were among those who escaped deportation because the shallow waters of Bentick Cove would not be navigable by the British warships. The French settlers from Belmont, however, were not able to continue to live in their homes because of differen which they had with the absentee landlords of Lot l6. They acquired land from the Lot l7 landlord and these people formed the basis of the present French Village of Miscouche.

THE FIRST BRITISH SETTLERS

In the first census taken on P.E.I., in I798 there were “,372 people on the Island. Of this

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