the French colonists, in taking the oath of allegiance to their new
rulers (1727-28), were promised that they should not be required at any
time to take up arms against France. They were now in the position of
Neutrals, and by that name were known; but this placed them in an
awkward predicament, as they were suspected by both contending powers.
The English hated them, believing their sympathies to be with the
French; while even their countrymen in Canada were distrustful of them,
urging them to withdraw.

The English colonists, fearing the extension of the French possessions,
and having Puritanical aversion of Roman Catholicism,--of which the
Neutrals were devout adherents,--entered upon the expedition against
the French forts with the zeal of fanatics, seeming in some instances to
consider their incursions in the light of religious crusades.

These "men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands",
whose descendants are to this day childlike and simple hearted, could
not understand these political distinctions, and naturally clung to the
pleasant farms which they had reclaimed from the sea and cultivated so
diligently, being most reluctant, of course, to leave those

"Strongly built houses, with frames of oak and of chestnut,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer windows, and gables projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway."

The French dominions were guarded by a chain of forts extending all
along the Atlantic coast, from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico.
That on Cape Breton Island, which protected the approach to the St.
Lawrence, was considered invincible, its walls being thirty feet high,