time would come when they would be finally secure on the lands their fathers had taken from the sea, and made beautiful and rich beyond any other in America. . . . Every argument has been made in our own day to influence opinion against these people, and to excuse or palliate the brutalities of men because of their connection with the British Government."
The same author charges that when finally the people were taken from their homes, "it was done without the sanction of the English Government, . . . and that orders forbidding this action were received too late to prevent it."
Lawrence chose to take umbrage at the presentation of a petition in which the habitants sought to define their reasons for remonstrating against surrendering their weapons of defence against the wild animals which frequently attacked their cattle. The men commissioned to carry the memorial to Lawrence at Halifax were adjured to take the oath as an incontestable sign of their submission. They declared they could not without first learning the wishes of those they represented. Lawrence, for all his arrogance and insistence, was unable to break their resolution. The delegates were imprisoned because, according to the Abbé Daudin, they would not answer affirmatively the question: "Will you or will you not swear to the King of Great Britain that you will take up arms against the King of France, his enemy?"
