The Cogswells in America - citizen hylbom blog

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wick, rich in forest and rivers, but even in its curtailed proportions it adds
to its mineral resources many productive fields for the a>j;riculturisl ; and it
was in the richest of these, near the Bay of Fundy, that the drama was
enacted in which the French Acadians made way for the New Engl.md
Puritans. Sympathy with the expatriated is always strong under any cir-
cumstances, but the American poet, Longfellow, has, by his genius, shed a
warm glow of sentiment over the banished Acadians, which blinds the reader
to the real facts of the situation. It must be borne in mind that Nova
Scotia was for years a battle-field for the .nrms and diplomacy of Great Britain
and France. l"o Britain, through the agency of the Cabots, belongs the
credit of the discovery of the Province, for Columbus had only explored in
the Gulf of Mexico. The Gilberts followed with actual residence ; and on
this fact, mainly, perhaps, depended the claims for possession made by Great
Britain. But the brave and enterprising French, under the energetic guidance
of De la Roche and De Monto, and with a power of assimilation, so to speak,
which was not visible in their subsequent efforts at colonization, soon made
Acadia a French province, and they established themselves in the rest of
Eastern Canad.i with a tenacity such as to secure the retention of their indi-
viduality in the Dominion to this day. By the treaty of Germains. Nova Scotia
was formally ceded to France, although prior to that date sjjecial efforts ii.id
been made, initiated by King James I., to convert the country into a New Scot-
land, corresponding to the New England, which was already realizing the
hopes that had attended its first settlement.
The student of history finds himself wondering how any progress was pos-
sible in Provinces which changed hands so frequently to meet the exigencies of
European statesmen. The conditions of life must have been at times abso-
lutely bewildering, and anything like settled loyalty must have been more than
difficult. At one time a treaty, at another time a conquest, led to change of
ownership. Nova Scotia was retaken by the English under secret instructions
from Cromwell, but the treaty of Breda, in 1667, between Charles the Second
and Louis the Fourteenth, restored it again to France. From this time, how-
ever, the energy of the British colonists and the apathy of the French guv-
ernment portended the ultimate predominance of the former race, and the cap-
ture of Port Royal ('afterwards called Annapolis Royal) by the Massachusetts
force, in 17 10. paved the way for the cession of the Province to the British
crown under the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713. A troubled career was before it
until 1749, little real colonization being effected ; and in that year a large part
of the Province known now as Cape Breton was, in a miserable spirit of compromise,
ceded again to France. For the next six years every effort was made
to develop the resources of the Province and to make it a thoroughly British
colony, but in vain. The French residents, simple and industrious though
they were, were compelled by external agencies to li\e in an atmosphere of
intrigue. They assisted to keep the Indians in a state of agitation ; they car-
ried on a mistrusted correspondence with their countrymen in the Province
known then as Canada, and now as Quebec. The strengthening of Louisbourg