The French and the Micmacs 223 
     
    
   
   
    
     nation, and broke down all the crosses erected over the 
     
     tombs. 
     
    

    
     The horrid affair of 1746 is another event that ought 
     
     never to be blotted out of your memory. The woollen 
     
     goods, which the savages bought of the English mer- 
     
     chants at that time trading in the basin of Mejagoue- 
     
     che, were all poisoned, so that upwards of two hundred 
     
     savages lost their lives. 
     
    

    
     What happened in 1749 is an event of the same atro- 
     
     cious nature. Towards the end of the month of July, 
     
     when the inhabitants of New France were strangers as 
     
     yet to the suspension of arms concluded between the two 
     
     crowns, the savages had taken some English prisoners 
     
     on the isle of Newfoundland; by whom they were in- 
     
     formed of the suspension of arms signed the year before 
     
     at Aix-la-Chapelle, to which they gave credit upon the 
     
     bare assertion of the prisoners. After this easy acquies- 
     
     cence, they expressed the greatest joy upon so happy 
     
     a reconciliation. Nay, they treated them as brethren, 
     
     untied them, and conducted them to their cottages, in 
     
     order to shew them some marks of hospitality ; but not- 
     
     withstanding this generous behaviour, those perfidious 
     
     guests murdered five and twenty of your people, men 
     
     and women, in the middle of the night. There happened 
     
     only to be two savages at some distance, who brought 
     
     us the news of this horrid massacre. 
     
    

    
     Towards the end of the same year, the English being 
     
     gone to Chebucto, in order to make the settlements they 
     
     have there at present, so prejudicial to our interest, 
     
     caused a report to be spread, that they were going to 
     
     destroy all the savages; and since that time, they have 
     
     acted but too much in consequence of this menace. They 
     
    
   
   
    
     even sent detachments of their troops on all sides in 
     
     pursuit of your people.