tranquillity that even conservatism hesitated to censure. A civil war armed men of the same ancestry against each other, yet for the advancement of the principles of everlasting peace and universal brotherhood. A new plebeian democracy took its place by the side of the proudest empires. Religion was disenthralled from civil institutions; thought obtained for itself free utterance by speech and by the press; industry was commissioned to follow the bent of its own genius; the system of commercial restrictions between states was reprobated and shattered; and the oceans were enfranchised for every peaceful keel. International law was humanized and softened; and a new, milder, and more just maritime code was concerted and enforced. The trade in slaves was branded and restrained. The language of Bacon and Milton, of Chatham and Washington, became so diffused that, in every zone, and almost in every longitude, childhood lisps the English as its mother tongue. The equality of all men was declared, personal freedom secured in its complete individuality, and common consent recognised as the only just origin of fundamental laws: so that in thirteen separate states, with ample territory for creating more, the inhabitants of each formed their own political institutions. By the side of the principle of the freedom of the individual and the freedom of the separate states, the noblest work of human intellect was consummated in a federal union; and that union put away every motive to its destruction by insuring to each successive generation the right to amend its constitution according to the increasing intelligence of the living people.

Astonishing deeds, throughout the globe, attended these changes: armies fought in the wilderness for rule over the solitudes which were to be the future dwelling-place of millions; navies hunted each other through every sea, engaging in battle now near the region of icebergs, now within the tropics; inventive art was summoned to make war more destructive, and to signalize sieges by new miracles of ability and daring; Africa was, in part, appropriated by rival nations of white men; and, in Asia, an adventurous company of British traders planted themselves as masters in the empire of the Great Mogul.

For America, the period abounded in new forms of virtue and greatness. Fidelity to principle pervaded the masses; an unorganized people, of their own free will, suspended commerce by universal assent; poverty rejected bribes. Heroism, greater than that of chivalry, burst into action from lowly men; citizens, with their families, fled from their homes and wealth in towns, rather than yield to oppression. Battalions sprung up in a night from spontaneous patriotism; where eminent statesmen hesitated, the instinctive action of the multitude revealed the counsels of magnanimity; youth and genius gave up life freely for the liberties of mankind. A nation without union, without magazines and

arsenals, without a treasury, without credit, without government, fought successfully against the whole strength and wealth of Great Britain: an army of veteran soldiers capitulated to insurgent husbandmen.

THE ACADIAN EXILES.

[From the Same.]

THE HE chief justice, Belcher, on whose opinion hung the fate of so many hundreds of innocent families, insisted that the French inhabitants were to be looked upon as confirmed "rebels," who had now collectively and without exception become "recusants." Besides, they still counted in their villages "eight thousand" souls, and the English not more than "three thousand;" they stood in the way of "the progress of the settlement;" "by their non-compliance with the conditions of the treaty of Utrecht, they had forfeited their possessions to the crown;" after the departure" of the fleet and troops, the province would not be in a condition to drive them out." "Such a juncture as the present might never occur; so he advised "against receiving any of the French inhabitants to take the oath," and for the removal of "all" of them from the province.

That the cruelty might have no palliation, letters arrived, leaving no doubt that the shores of the Bay of Fundy were entirely in the possession of the British; and yet at a council, at which Vice-Admiral Boscawen and Rear-Admiral Mostyn were present by invitation, it was unanimously determined to send the French inhabitants out of the province; and, after mature consideration, it was further unanimously agreed that, to prevent their attempting to return and molest the settlers that were to be set down on their lands, it would be most proper to distribute them among the several colonies on the continent.

To hunt them into the net was impracticable; artifice was therefore resorted to. By a general proclamation, on one and the same day, the scarcely conscious victims, "both old men and young men, as well as all the lads of ten years of age," were peremptorily ordered to assemble at their respective posts. On the appointed fifth of September they obeyed. At Grand Pré, for example, four hundred and eighteen unarmed men came together. They were marched into the church and its avenues were closed, when Winslow, the American commander, placed himself in their centre, and spoke:

"You are convened together to manifest to you his majesty's final resolution to the French inhabitants of this his province Your lands

and tenements, cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, are forfeited to the crown, and you yourselves are to be removed from this his province. I am, through his majesty's goodness, directed to allow you liberty to carry. off your money and household goods, as many as you can, without discommoding the vessels you go in." And he then declared them the king's prisoners. Their wives and families shared their lot; their sons, five hundred and twenty-seven in number; their daughters, five hundred and seventy-six; in the whole, women and babes and old men and children all included, nineteen hundred and twenty-three souls. The blow was sudden; they had left home but for the morning, and they never were to return. Their cattle were to stay unfed in the stalls, their fires to die out on their hearths. They had for that first day even no food for themselves or their children.

The tenth of September was the day for the embarkation of a part of the exiles. They were drawn up six deep; and the young men, one hundred and sixty-one in number, were ordered to march first on board the vessel. They could leave their farms and cottages, the shady rocks on which they had reclined, their herds, and their garners; but nature yearned within them, and they would not be separated from their parents. Yet of what avail was the frenzied despair of the unarmed youth? They had not one weapon; the bayonet drove them to obey; and they marched slowly and heavily from the chapel to the shore, between women and children, who, kneeling, prayed for blessings on their heads, they themselves weeping and praying and singing hymns. The seniors went next; the wives and children must wait till other transport vessels arrive. The delay had its horrors. The wretched people left behind were kept together near the sea, without proper food, or raiment, or shelter, till other ships came to take them away; and December, with its appalling cold, had struck the shivering, half-clad, broken-hearted sufferers, before the last of them were removed. "The embarkation of the inhabitants goes on but slowly," wrote Monckton, from Fort Cumberland, near which he had burned three hamlets; "the most part of the wives of the men we have prisoners are gone off with their children, in hopes I would not send off their husbands without them." Their hope was vain. Near Annapolis, a hundred heads of families fled to the woods, and a party was detached on the hunt to bring them in. "Our soldiers hate them," wrote an officer on this occasion; "and, if they can but find a pretext to kill them, they will." Did a prisoner seek to escape, he was shot down by the sentinel. Yet some fled to Quebec; more than three thousand had withdrawn to Miramachi and the region south of the Ristigouche; some found rest on the banks of the St. John's and its branches; some found a lair in their native forests; some were charitably sheltered from the English in the wigwams of the savages. But seven thousand