The Expulsion of the Acadians (Part 2)

The event for which the year 1755 will be ever memorable in the history of this continent was not the capture of Beausejour, nor the defeat of Braddock. These were results which occurred in the ordinary course of warfare, and which grew naturally out of the struggle which England and France were waging in America. Our interest in them is merely the interest of patriotism; we feel no sympathy for the individual soldier who lays down his life for his country, for it is the business of the soldier to fight and to die, and to some a death on the field of battle which is lighted by the sun of victory seems the happiest death of all. The event which gives the year 1755 a sad pre-eminence over its fellows -- the expulsion of the Acadians -- was an occurrence of a very different character. The sufferers were men who were, or ought to have been, non-combatants, and in the common ruin which overtook them their wives and children were involved. The breaking up of their domestic hearths, their severance from their property, the privations they endured when driven among strangers, and the numberless ills which overtook them as the result of their first misfortune, have an interest for the people of every nation, for they appeal to our common humanity. It seems at the first view of the case an outrage on that humanity and a grievous wrong that such an occurrence as the expulsion of the Acadians should have taken place merely from political motives. The misfortunes and sufferings of the Acadians stand out prominently, and appeal to every eye; a great poet has sung of their sorrows; (Longfellow, in "Evangeline.") innumerable writers of books have referred to their expulsion in terms of condemnation; and so the matter has grown until it came to be almost a settled opinion that the expulsion of the Acadians was something which could not be justified, and of which its authors should have been ashamed. That is the view which one historian of Nova Scotia gives of the affair. Perhaps those who examine the whole matter impartially, in the light of all the facts, will come to the conclusion that it would have been a real cause for shame had the Acadians been permitted longer to misuse the clemency of the government, to plot against British power, and to obstruct the settlement of the province by loyal subjects.