upon as merely harmless. They were not oppressed by any burden, or subject to any tax save that which their own priests exacted of them. It is believed that they would have been content, and would have come under British allegiance, had it not been for the malign and defiant influence of those priests. The English affirmed that they were at great charge for keeping up garrisons; that for forty years they had had no benefit from their treaty possession; that they could not induce their own countrymen to come in as colonists, unwelcomed by such uncongenial neighbors; and that the professed Neutrals were among them an ever-threatening element, ready to turn to most active enmity as military or diplomatical complications might afford the opportunity. A thousand of the Acadians had indeed moved away voluntarily in 1750, leaving their houses and barns to be destroyed by the Indians. Nearly double the number that were soon to be forcibly removed by the English, had been induced or compelled by the French to withdraw from the end of the peninsula to the north of it, and were there a threatening power.
Under this condition of things the English governor, Lawrence, acting by instructions from the King through Lord Halifax, after disarming many of the remaining Neutrals, made most deliberate and persistent efforts, but all in vain, to induce them to take the oath of allegiance. Deputies sent from their different villages positively refused to do so. In counsel with the Governor and two English admirals, who advised the measure, it was decided that those thus recusant should be removed with their families, taking with them their money and household effects, and that they should be supplied with provisions and distributed over the southern provinces at distances which would prevent any concert between them. Additional reasons were found for this measure in charges that the Neutrals were idle and improvident, and had neglected field labor and fishing, as most naturally would be the case
