26 Succesxv on [he Edge 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     more than squatters in the eyes of the law, although many 
     
     families had been in the area for a generation or more. 
     
     The rents were sometimes exorbitant, and almost always 
     
     more than the tenants could pay. And the threats of 
     
     eviction the rent collectors often made were sometimes 
     
     carried out. For both Irish and Acadians the situation they 
     
     had fled from years before had finally caught up with 
     
     them. Dealing with rent collectors seems to have been 
     
     somewhat less difficult for the Irish; they spoke and 
     
     understood English and some of them could even read 
     
     it. Many Acadian men knew some English, but not 
     
     enough to argue with a rent collector. Nor could they read 
     
     it. It was easy for an unscrupulous rent collector to make 
     
     them believe that the rent was higher than it really was 
     
     or that it was due at a different time. Nor could the 
     
     Acadians be sure that the man demanding money was a 
     
     rent collector at all. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Finally in 1843 they had had enough. Revolution, 
     
     which was already in the air and which was to break out 
     
     in Europe five years later, had not only reached the Island, 
     
     but had made its way to Tignish. It seems to have been 
     
     mostly, if not completely, an Acadian uprising, perhaps 
     
     because the Irish settlers lived further away from St. 
     
     Eleanor's, where the Prince County Sheriff resided. Men, 
     
     women and children greeted the rent collectors with rocks 
     
     and other missiles, and drove them away. When two 
     
     months later, the Prince County Sheriff and his volunteers 
     
     escorted the collectors back to Tignish, the revolt was 
     
     more organized. A series of sentinels posted along the road 
     
     from St. Eleanor ’s - which is nearly fifty miles away — relayed 
     
     the alarm when they saw them approaching. Once arrived 
     
     at the southern outskirts of the settlement, apparently in 
     
     the present community of St. Felix, the Sheriff demanded 
     
     that the ringleaders of the resistance present themselves 
     
     He forced an entry into one house, but the man in question 
     
     had already escaped. In the course. of the rioting, several 
     
     men were wounded and a horse was killed. Eventually the