Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/335

Rh no tricks of fancy, are needed to enhance its sadness; for it is indeed a most piteous story. Allowing it to stand in every fact, detail, argument, and vindication as related and urged by the English, it still records one of the most distressing outrages which either military or diplomatic policy or necessity has instigated and carried out amid civilized scenes of the earth. We may in measure and degree exculpate the English, and perhaps affirm that there was no alternative course for them under their annoyances, perplexities, and aggravations; but still we can put ourselves into such sympathetic and appreciative relations with the victims — if of necessity and circumstance — as to see only what they saw, to feel as they felt, and to confess that their course would most likely have been our own. They were a rude and simple peasant race. Their priests represented to them the law of their highest reverence and allegiance. Their home had been amid the forests and fields and ocean shores of their peninsula for four or five generations. In spite of fog and ice and long, dreary winters, they had prospered by the farm, the fishery, and the hunt: they had flocks and herds. They had perpetuated among them the characteristics of the peasant life of France when their ancestors came hither. Their range of existence was narrow; their habits were mean and earthy, with much that was merely animal and sordid. All the more was what they had of joy and good and opportunity, and associated fellowship in interest and pleasure, very precious to them. They loved to hold dear the tie to their beloved France. They might yet come again under its protection. They had no reason to respect or to succumb to the English: loyalty and religion drew their hearts another way. They had to witness and mourn over the wreck of their domestic life. They were scattered, unwelcome, and only as objects of dislike and disgust among uncongenial scenes and strangers. Often — but not with intent, or heartlessness of cruelty — families among them were parted never