Jeanne Dugas of Acadia by Cassie Deveaux Cohoon Page A

Uncle, but what about the Mi’kmaq?”
    Uncle Abraham hesitated, then said, “Perhaps the most important thing we French did was to befriend the Mi’kmaq, or rather to let them befriend us. Our forefathers would have perished here without their help, and we have lived with them in peace. We farmed the lowlands; the Mi’kmaq continued to fish and to hunt in the forests. The British, I am sure, will want to take over the land completely as soon as they can bring their own people to settle here. I don’t trust them.”
    â€œAh, Uncle, you and Monsieur de la Tour are the older generation,” Joseph said. “You don’t have the mettle to do battle, do you?”
    â€œWe are the voice of experience,” Uncle Abraham replied firmly. Joseph put his arm around his uncle’s shoulder, to show he did not resent his views, but it was clear that Joseph did not agree with him.
    â€œDo you know how the Duvivier campaign is going?” Monsieur de la Tour asked Uncle Abraham.
    â€œNo. It’s supposed to be still going on now. One thing we do know is that the reinforcements Duvivier was expecting from France have not yet arrived and it does not look as if they will. I don’t know what it means for us if the raid is successful. Either way, there will be more fighting and hardship.”
    Within a few days, there were reports that Duvivier’s raid on Annapolis had indeed failed.
    During the winter the British authorities interrogated the Acadian delegates in Grand-Pré about their actions during the expedition. The delegates insisted that the inhabitants of Grand-Pré had not given Duvivier any assistance except under duress. When asked about cattle conveyed to Louisbourg, the delegates replied that two droves of black cattle and sheep from Minas had been herded by Joseph Leblanc dit Le Maigre and Joseph Dugas. There were no immediate repercussions, but the people of Grand-Pré knew that this would not help their relations with the British authorities.
    â€”
    There was nothing for the families to do but to settle into the farm life of Grand-Pré for the winter months. After that first serious discussion, when Uncle Abraham made his views so clear, the men of the family met at least every other day. Joseph was not always there. He continued his cabotage activities as late into the fall as he could. And he brought back news, several times from Louisbourg itself. He managed to sail there at least twice before the sailing season ended. Sometimes he had news from other sea captains, sometimes from the Mi’kmaq. Joseph knew the three Mi’kmaw scouts, Jean Sauvage, Denis Michaud and François Muize, hired by the French to advise on the movements of British ships and their military. He kept in close contact with them.
    It was Joseph’s wife, Marguerite, who told Jeanne that Joseph had also been gathering military information for the French. She worried about her husband’s safety.
    â€œAt least,” she said, “I thank God that he did not get it into his head to become a privateer. I worry about my father too,” she added, “but I know he’s not going to change.”
    Not for the first time, Jeanne wondered how such a big, rough, rowdy man like Le Maigre could have such a gentle daughter as Marguerite.

Chapter 11
    T he officials at Louisbourg knew they would be facing war in the spring and summer of 1745, but they expected the attack to be led by British warships that would sail from England in the spring. They hoped that French warships would have arrived by then as well, but an early siege came from the New England colonies, led by William Pepperrell from the Colony of Massachusetts. The ships from New England first landed at Canceau, where they rebuilt the colonial fort’s defences as they waited for the drift ice around Louisbourg to melt, where a group of small colonial warships was already blockading the fortress. In early May the