spring officers from Port-La—Joie would come in the name of the King to take an account of the seed that they sowed 9nd in the Autumn these same licensed Oppressors would arrive to relieve the poor Acadiens of their hardly won crops, leaving them barely sufficient to sustain life throughout the cruel winter. Some of the women of Faye de la Fortune determined to cuede the unjustice;
as feet as the grain was thrashed they would conceal a portion of it in their clothing and carry it away to the woods. where they wOuld hide it and thus secure an extra store. After some years, seeing that there was no other course open for them they submitted to the inevitable. took the Oath of Allegiance and were graciously permitted to have undisputed possession of the fruits of their intestry. They however, made proviso_thnt they should never take up arms against the king of France.
Over thirty years had come and gone when a new calamity hefel these poor Acndians who would seem to be specially loved by the almighty. judging from the frequency with which he laid his chastening hand upon them.
In the yctr 1798. the proprietor of Township Forty Three. Killian Townshend and Englishman came to claim the land surrounding Pay Fortune from which he proposed to evict the Acadians in order to establish a protestant colony of Dincwell: and others who were at the time settled at St. Peters but who had laid longing eyes on the "Nahoths vineyard" at fine de la Fortune.
‘1
The Acndian settlers refused to acknowledge Hr. Townshend's claim to the land
on the ground of their being possessed of a letter of recommendation from the British Officer who had administered to them the oath of allegiance, This paper specified that they were reinstated in their property as securely as
\ 1.5 \
wnen they held it under Louis XVI.
mr. Townshend however took a different View of the matter; he resorted to law
and huvinb more reSOurCcs at his eoLrnnt than the poor Acadians, gained his case
and obliged them to leave Bay Fortune. The greater number went to Cape Breton