MILITARY»: AND CIVIL. 1 3 
     
    
   
   
    
     of a peculiar people. Here and there a stricken few remain, 
     
     but how unlike their untamed bold progenitors. As a race 
     
     they have withered from the land. The Indian of eagle glance 
     
     and lion bearing are gone, and his degraded offspring crawl 
     
     upon the soil where he walked in majesty and firmness. Their 
     
     bows and arrows are broken, their wigwams are going to dust, 
     
     and their Council fire have long since gone out. Slowly and 
     
     sadly they enter the diminished forest and there read their 
     
     doom; they, too, are shrinking before the mighty tide which is 
     
     pressing them onward to the bosom of the Great Spirit, which 
     
     shall envelop them forever. 
     
    
   
   
    
     We shall now for a while take leave of the little Island 
     
     in order to bring to light the position and conditions of 
     
     the Acadians. We discover that during our absence Sir 
     
     William Alexander, a Scottish nobleman, having obtained a 
     
     grant of the peninsula in I622———now denominated Nova 
     
     Scotia—arrived there with a number of emigrants, intending to 
     
     found a colony but failed; later on, however. British settle- 
     
     ments became established. War against France having been 
     
     declared by the Mother Country in 1626, soon this state of 
     
     affairs reached the rival colonist in Nova Scotia, and the New 
     
     Englanders, desirous of rendering a helping hand to their 
     
     fellow colonists in Nova Scotia, furnished them with strong 
     
     military bands. Thus it was that during a period of one 
     
     hundred years the ownership of the provincechanged hands so 
     
     often, being taken four different times by the English and as 
     
     often relinquished. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Finally, however, four Regiments of Infantry, besides Ar- 
     
     tillery, were raised in New England and conveyed to Port 
     
     Royal in 1710. Those troops on their arrival opened fire on 
     
     the fort, but the Governor having a force numbering less than 
     
     three hundred men under his command, capitulated. The 
     
     garrison being allowed to retain their arms and baggage, marched 
     
     out of the fort with drums beating and colors flying, when the 
     
     Lilies of France gave place to the Cross of St. George, which 
     
     has been the national flag of the province to the present day. 
     
     Thus Port Royal, the principal fortification of the French in 
     
     Acadia, was taken by the British, which ended the war in that 
     
     section, and in 17 13 a treaty of peace was concluded at Utrecht, 
     
     by which France ceded Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to 
     
     England, but retained Cape Breton, the Island of St. John and