Читать книгу Piau - Bruce Monk Murray - Страница 12

With the arrival of Mangeant, we experienced a change in the atmosphere of the town. Darkness seemed to descend. Those living in the lower or upper town readied themselves for the next reign of terror and, therefore, the next round of negotiations with the British rulers. With little warning, Lieutenant-Governor Armstrong insisted that an unconditional oath of allegiance to the newly crowned King George II be taken by every French-speaking subject in Acadia. He publicly admonished Ensign Wroth, who had been sent to Grand Pré and Pisiquit to administer the oath to the French inhabitants, for accepting a conditional oath. When the Acadian delegates at Annapolis requested that the clause allowing the French to maintain their neutrality in wartime be accepted by the ruling council, the lieutenant-governor jailed the lot of them, including poor Uncle Abraham. In such times of trouble, most Acadians distanced themselves from the British as best they could until the storm passed.

This was easier for us at Melanson Village. We were at a distance of eight miles from Annapolis by road and four by river. My grandfather, Charles Melanson, had established our settlement close to the mouth of the Dauphin River, later known as the Annapolis River, in 1664. Our family farm faced directly across from Goat Island, known to us then as Île aux Chèvres. Grandmama always declared that the distance between us and the fort was a blessing from God. For the time being, she was correct.

Benjamin came to stay with us during this period because René had purchased land in the lower town and was building a stone residence to rent out. He travelled each day by boat to and from Annapolis with my brother Charles to work on this structure.

Now a young man, like me, Benjamin had retained the good looks he had possessed as a child. In truth, he was inordinately handsome. However, unlike many blessed with fine features, he had a profound inner toughness and a strong character. He also had a great commitment to fairness and justice, which would help define the rest of his short life.

Having been raised at Grand Pré, Benjamin had little contact with the British and had little fear of those that governed his community from a distance. He had been influenced by his grandfather in all things and chose to live with him in the last ten years of Uncle Pierre’s life, thus insuring his inheritance of the ancestral home in Grand Pré. His father had remarried and had produced a household of new children. Benjamin was tutored in the ways of the English by a man born in Yorkshire, but he had learned from him that the British were not to be trusted. It was a matter of getting along, taking advantage when you could, and enjoying your freedom while it lasted.

One Sunday, after we had returned from mass at St. Jean Baptiste in Annapolis, Grandmama pointed to a huge wooden chest in the corner of the room. It was covered with an ancient woven rug. She directed Benjamin and me to use the key she was grasping tightly to unlock the chest. She then instructed us to lift the lid and discover what was inside. To our surprise, it was filled with muskets of every design and size.

“These were weapons my father designed and constructed over his lifetime,” she remarked with pride. “Some date back to France some seventy years ago when he was gun-maker to the king. Do you know he invented muskets for King Louis’s own musketeers? I wish to make you responsible for maintaining these weapons. Clean them and ensure that they are in working order. Promise me, Piau.”

Benjamin and I were stunned by the appearance of this arsenal of vintage muskets.

“It would be a great honour, Grandmama. You can rely on me to get them in good working order.” I could feel the privilege that was being bestowed upon me.

One day, while alone in the house, I decided to remove all the muskets from the box for cleaning. To my surprise I found documents at the bottom that were not the property of Abraham Dugas, my great-grandfather, but papers belonging to my grandfather, Charles Melanson — official letters, deeds, letters of appointment, and, startlingly, several journals written in English.

I should not have been surprised, I suppose. After all, my grandfather was born and raised in England and his mother tongue was not French but English. However, they were not writings from a time of English rule. They were more recent, dating from 1691 to 1695, when France was struggling to hold on to Acadia. I remember being told that this was a tumultuous time, plagued by English raids at Port Royal, a decade before the battle that took my father’s life and brought Acadia under English rule for the final time.

My recollection of the rumours associated with my grandfather being a British spy resurfaced. I hesitated to discover the contents of the writings in case they confirmed the truth I had already suspected. I would leave them for another day, postponing the inevitable revelation that he was an English informant. I would wait until I felt prepared to learn their secrets. Nevertheless, only a lifetime of hardships and misery have allowed me to accept them in the context in which they were written.

Curiosity and fear were my constant companions over the next few weeks. I could not erase the thought of my grandfather’s letters, nor the fear of what they contained. This feeling was only heightened by the troubles in Annapolis.

I stole moments of solitude when I could and began to read the personal correspondence first. My mother’s oldest sister, Marie, had moved to Boston when she was a girl to live with her grandmother Priscilla Laverdure, following the death of her husband. Marie never returned home; she was educated there and married a Boston merchant, David Basset. Judging from the letters, it was her father, Charles, who made regular visits to his mother and daughter in New England. I had not known this.

By the time I had completed Aunt Marie’s letters, I felt I had known her all my life. A person’s character reveals itself in his or her writing. After Marie had married Basset, she moved her grandmother into her husband’s home to live out the remainder of her life in a warm and loving household. Judging from her responses to the letters she had received from my grandfather, he was keeping her well informed of all the goings-on at Melanson Village and, more importantly, the movements and policies of the French at Port Royal. It was apparent that her husband was relaying this information to the governor in Boston. The details could only be imagined.

I decided to question my grandmother about Marie and Basset without giving away that I was secretly reading her husband’s correspondence.

“Grandmama, what can you tell me about your son-in-law David Basset? I have heard his name mentioned several times in connection with Aunt Marie in Boston and I am curious about the nature of his business.”

A look of fury appeared on the old woman’s face. “I do not mention that name in my home. He was a scoundrel and as close to the devil as anyone I ever set eyes on. I will only tell you that three years ago he was found aboard his ship in the West Indies with his throat slit from ear to ear — a fitting end for someone who had caused only misery to those close to him — especially my daughter Marie, who is an angel!”

“But what of his business?” I persisted.

“I will say only this. He was a privateer, and although he made plenty of money for his efforts, most of it was earned illegally. Every British pound he pocketed was soaked in blood. Where there was trouble, you could expect Basset to be there. For certain he is eternally damned!”

I never mentioned Basset again, but the contents of the letters and journals now made sense.

Complicity! Complicity! Complicity! That was what I thought as I read my grandfather’s journal entry dated May 20, 1690. He spoke of having been taken at daybreak to a British command ship by his son-in-law David Basset, having already seen seven English ships dropping anchor at Goat Island the night before. Basset apparently was in command of one of the New England vessels. He described a meeting he had with the commander, Sir William Phips, where he was questioned about the state of the fort at Port Royal and the number of soldiers and cannons present there. He admitted to delivering the requested information hoping that no resistance would come from the French garrison and that a peaceful surrender would be achieved, thus sparing the town and his own settlement pillaging and destruction.

He wrote that Phips had warned that he possessed seven hundred and fifty armed men at the ready to attack the fort and had urged him to deliver such warning to Governor Meneval at Port Royal. Grandfather said he had met with the French governor later that day and the governor had reluctantly agreed to surrender without a fight.

He described how agitated Meneval had been on hearing the British threat. The French governor lamented that of the seventy soldiers in his command, half were out game hunting and those left behind were without arms. He despaired that he was sitting in a fortress that was barely constructed. The old fort had been destroyed earlier in the year in order that a newer stronger one could be built. The governor had fumed at Grandfather out of sheer frustration. He had insisted that there be honourable terms of surrender.

His next journal entry was dated May 21, 1690. Grandfather wrote that he accompanied Father Petit to Sir William Phips’s ship to discuss the terms of surrender. The terms agreed upon were that the troops at Port Royal were to retain their arms and personals and be permitted to return to France. The church and its properties were to remain as they were and the priests were to continue to serve the Acadian community. The people living in and around the town were to be left in peace. Grandfather seemed overjoyed with the results of his efforts. “We are so blessed at the outcome!”

His entry on May 22, however, described the horrible reality of the previous day’s negotiations. News from the fort had been grim. Some Acadian residents of the town had fled to Melanson Village to escape the pillaging. They informed Grandfather that Phips had broken the terms of surrender, had imprisoned Governor Meneval and his soldiers in the church, levelled and burned the fort, removed the cannons, destroyed the cross, looted the church, killed the livestock, and emptied His Majesty’s storehouses. They had confiscated china, pewter, and even the priest’s vestments. They took everything they could find.

Grandfather’s written response to these events seemed to contain a small dose of bewilderment with a large dose of resignation. Can you imagine such quick resignation? Was he happy with the outcome? I could not detect any feelings of remorse from his journal. I stopped reading immediately. I was filled with such strong feelings of indignation. To think this man’s blood ran through mine and was mixed with the blood of my heroic father. I immediately felt I had been poisoned by the things I had read. And at that point I craved the sage advice of old Uncle Pierre, who regrettably was no longer with us. I realize now that he would have simply said his brother was a misguided man.