waiting for a favourable moment to strike a decisive
blow, not merely for Acadia or any part of it, but for
the mastery of the North American continent. With this
object ever in the background, France, through her agents,
strove to make the Acadians a thorn in Great Britain's
side, while England hesitated to allow them to pass over
to the ranks of her enemies. At the same time she was
anxious that they should, by some visible sign, acknowledge
her sovereignty. But to become a British subject it was
necessary to take the oath of allegiance. Most of the
Acadians had refused to take this oath without reservations.
Great Britain should then have allowed them to depart or
should have deported them. She had done neither. On the
contrary, she had tried to keep them, had made concessions
to them to remain, and had closed her eyes to violations
of the law, until many of them had been, by various means,
acknowledged as British subjects.

A Murray or a Dorchester would have humoured the people
and would probably have kept them in allegiance. But this
was an impossible task for Lawrence. He was unaccustomed
to compromise. He kept before him the letter of the law,
and believed that any deviation from it was fraught with
danger. He entered upon his duties as administrator in
the month of October 1753. Six weeks later he made a
report on the condition of affairs in the province. This
report contains one pregnant sentence. He is referring
to the emigrant Acadians who had left their homes for
French soil and were now wishing to come back, and he
says: 'But Your Lordships may be assured they will never