Land Of My Fathers Reclaimed From Barbarism At The Cost Of So Much
Blood - So Much Treasure, Bountifully Provided With Nobles - Priests -
Soldiers - Fortifications By The Great Louis; Sedulously - Paternally
Watched Over By Colbert And Talon:
To what depth of despair, shall we
say, degradation are thou sunk!
Proud old city, have you then no more defenders to put forth, in your
supreme hour of woe and desertion! Has then that dauntless race of
Gentilshommes Canadiens, d'Iberville - Ste. Helene - de Bouville
- de Becancourt - de Repentigny, disappeared without leaving any
successors!
And you stern old de Frontenac, you who replied so effectually to the
invader through the mouth of your cannon, is your martial spirit
quenched forever, in that loved fortress in which rest your venerated
remains, you who at one time (1689) were ready, at the head of your
Regulars and fighting Canadians, [123] to carry out the rash scheme,
hatched by deCallieres: the conquest of New York and destruction of
the chief settlements in New England, a scheme which involved the
dispersion of more than eighteen thousand people, as sixty-six years
later (in 1755), a British Commander tore from their homes the
peaceable Acadians of Grand-Pre. [124]
I could enlarge to any extent the gloomy picture which the history of
this shameful period discloses. Two skilful novelists, the one in the
English language, Wm. Kirby, [125] Esq., of Niagara, the other in the
French, Joseph Marmette, [126] of Quebec, have woven two graphic and
stirring historical romances, out of the materials which the career of
the Intendant Bigot and the desertion of the colony in its hour of
trial, by France - so abundantly supply.
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