The Shadow of Calamity 181

officials of Louisburg and Port La Joye urged in almost every letter from 1749 to 1758. In April M. de Bonnaventure, the Commandant, was transferred to Louisburg and was succeeded by M. Rousseau de Villejouin.°

The census of 1755, as supplied by the missiona- ries to L’Abbé de L’Isle Dieu, revealed a population of 2969. This census is the first to show a settlement at Three Rivers since the failure of Roma, but ac- cording to it there were then 101 persons located there and others were arriving. Immediately after the census was taken an unprecedented number of Acadians crossed to the island owing to the fall of Beauséjour and the Expulsion of 1755 which fol- lowed it. This was the most trying period of all for the Commandant. The refugees came late in autumn without warning, without resources, and the island had little to offer. Between the last months of 1755 and the first months of spring some 2000 were flung upon the care of de Villejouin.’ They came from Beauséjour, Cocagne, Pisquid, and Cobequid. From the latter a few had moved over quietly during the two years preceding the expulsion, but in 1755 the village moved en masse via Tatamagouche so that when the British officers arrived bearing the orders of Lawrence not a single habitan was to be found. In his extremity de Villejouin shipped off the more aged and infirm to Canada but he still had 1400

6B, Vol. 99.

7C11 IV, Vol. 35, p. 158; Can, Arch. Report, 1905, Vol. IT, App. H, p. 183.