Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/145

 1713-63] Cape Breton and lie de Saint Jean. 113 Bay that was definitely acknowledged to belong to France. At once the whole energy of the French government was concentrated on the development of these islands. Cape Breton was rechristened lie Royale, by way of marking its new destiny; and all the French settlers from Newfoundland were transferred to its shores, and put under their old Newfoundland governor. In the two islands homes were offered to any Acadians who chose to come ; but the English were loth to lose the French colonists and their property, and, in the early years after the Treaty of Utrecht, placed difficulties in the way of such emigration, a fact that made the deportation of 1755 the less justifiable. The fortifi- cation of Louisbourg began in 1720, after Vauban's plan. The population in the neighbourhood of the fort was over 2000, the garrison itself 1000; but the population of the rest of the island amounted to little more than another thousand. The constitution was of the Canadian pattern, with the same elements of strength and weakness. The export of fish, oil, and coal was good ; and the colony could boast a fine military road, a hospital, and a nuns' school for girls. But the concentration of the inhabitants round Louisbourg, where the soil was poor, hindered tillage, so that the island depended on its neighbour Saint Jean for food. As the government of Cape Breton was subordinate to Canada, so Saint Jean was subordinate to Cape Breton. In Saint Jean there had been fishing-ports in the seventeenth century, but no agriculture till 1713. In 1735 the population was only 542 ; but in the next twenty years the numbers increased rapidly, and at the time of the expulsion of the Acadians there was another great rise. When Saint Jean passed with Cape Breton to England by the Treaty of Paris (1763), both lost their population, which had been kept up by artificial causes ; and its place was but slowly filled up with Scotch settlers. The late development of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Prince Edward Island in English hands, under perfectly peaceful conditions, is the best testimony to the merit of the French efforts made at a remoter time under conditions of chronic warfare. The vitality of Port Royal, rising ever, phoenix-like, from its ashes ; the solidarity of the little Acadian people, who after forty years of English rule had to be deported, only to make their way back to their old homes again ; the creative power repeatedly shown in making something out of the least promising material these things set Acadia apart as deserving a special place in the history of French colonisation. But here, as else- where, the main source of strength was the successful manipulation of the Indians. By their skill in this particular the French multiplied their forces many times over. It was this that made the impenetrable backwoods which cut off Acadia from Canada, and to a less degree from New England, seem to be really French, and which gave an apparent justification to the claims of the French commissioners of 1755. C. M. H. VII. CH. III.