George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 4, 15th edition.

He was therefore able to send from Halifax no more than a party of four hundred men, who, just at sunset on the twentieth of April, arrived not far from the town at the entrance of what is now called Cumberland Basin. The next day the transports sailed near the harbor; the flag of the Bourbons was raised on the dikes to the north of the Messagouche;¹ while, to the south of it, the priest La Loutre himself set fire to the church in Chiegnecto, and its reluctant, despairing inhabitants, torn by conflicting passions, attached to their homes which stood on some of the most fertile land² in the world, yet bound to France by their religion and their oaths, consumed their houses to ashes, and escaped across the river which marks the limit of the peninsula.³

On Sunday, the twenty-second, Lawrence, the English commander, having landed north of the Messagouche, had an interview with La Corne, who avowed his purpose, under instructions from La Jonquiere, to defend⁴ at all hazards, and keep possession of every post as far as the river Messagouche, till the boundaries between the two countries should be settled by commissaries.

La Come held a strong position, and had under his command Indians, Canadians, regular troops, and Acadian refugees, to the number, it was thought, of twenty-five hundred. The English officer was, therefore, compelled for his safety to embark, on the very