With war (Austrian Succession) having been declared (March 18th, 1744) between France and England, Le Loutre threw his cover and directly involved himself by assisting Duvivier when Duvivier invested Fort Ann at Annapolis Royal during September of 1744.6 It is still a historical question as to whether Le Loutre ever actively led the Indians in a raid prior to Duvivier's arrival. One was carried out earlier in 1744, and, it is clear, that the missionaries of the peninsula, of whom Le Loutre was but one (Abbe Maillard was another), "were advised to support the intentions of the governor of Louisbourg and encourage the Indians to make as many forays into British areas as the military authorities consider necessary."7

I have found no reference to Le Loutre's role in the eventful year of 1745. As we can see from our principal narrative, Quebec sent armed forces to Acadia early in the year.8 The French authorities wanted, after its aborted attempt the previous fall, to recapture Annapolis Royal and to finally replace the English flag which had flown over its ramparts for the previous 35 years. What the French did not figure on was that Louisbourg was about to be "surprised" and put under siege by superior forces from New England. Le Loutre undoubtedly played some sort of a role as Marin initially marched on Annapolis Royal and put Fort Anne under siege; and, likely too, he was with Marin when his forces tried to cross the Canso Straight in an effort to come to the defense of Louisbourg.9

Whatever happened to Le Loutre during these momentous events in Nova Scotia during the first nine months of 1745, is something that cannot be said with any certainty, it can be said, however, that the British knew of him and hated him for his activities which drove the Indians to strike at any unguarded English party they might come upon: the English put a price on Le Loutre's head. He fled the province and showed up at Quebec "on 14th September, accompanied by five Micmacs, and left seven days later with specific instructions which in fact made him a military leader."

Le Loutre, likely before the winter of 1745/46 was out, was soon back in Nova Scotia with his Indians. During the summer of 1746, he was involved in coordinating the communications that went on between the French ships at Chebucto harbour and the forces of Ramezay which Quebec had sent and which were gathering at the Isthmus of Chignecto. With the death of Duc d'Anville and the wreck of the powerful French fleet, Le Loutre was off to France by taking passage in one of d'Anville's sailing vessels, the Sirene.10 After apparently having spent some time in France, Le Loutre took passage aboard the La Gloire which was part of a larger French fleet making its way to America. This was in May of 1747. Unfortunately, the French fleet was come upon by a fleet of British war ships at Cape Finisterre and the result was that Le Loutre was made, along with many others, a prisoner of the English.11

By the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Louisbourg, much to the chagrin of the New Englanders, was handed back to France. On June, 29th, 1749, among the entourage of the new French governor, Desherbiers, who landed at Louisbourg to take it back, could likely be found Abbe Le Loutre -- eager once again to take up his missionary duties in Acadia. He was ordered to go to Pointe-a-Beausejour rather than to his earlier mission at Shubenacadie. It is clear that the French authorities felt that Le Loutre could play a role in the on-going arguments between France and England as to just where the northwestern border of ancient Acadia lie: for the French it was the Isthmus of Chignecto; and for the English it was to encompass, at least, the shores of the Bay of Chaleur (and, thus, include most all of present day Province of New Brunswick and State of Maine).12 Ordered to meet up with a French officer by the name of Boishebert, Le Loutre made his way to the isthmus. (La Jonquiere had sent Boishebert from Quebec and was to further buttress the French position at the Isthmus of Chignecto by sending, in the fall of 1749, to command that place, one of his own specially picked officers, Chevalier Louis La Corne.)

Le Loutre was to make Chignecto his headquarters, more particularly he "kept a shop at Baie Verte on his own private account";13 his presence, however, was felt throughout Acadia. While, it is clear, Le Loutre held sway over the superstitious Indians,14 he had more difficulty in getting the Acadians involved in the French cause.15 At any rate, the English recognized Le Loutre as a major agitator. Cornwallis called him "a good-for-nothing scoundrel," and offered that he would pay to any one, one hundred pounds if Le Loutre's head were brought to him.16

The difficulties the English experienced in respect to their expansion in Acadia, during 1749, continued through the next three ensuing years; and, doubtlessly, Le Loutre continued to do his best to serve the French crown working from his headquarters at the isthmus. (It should be noted that the English, through the first forty years of their "occupation" of Acadia, hardly expanded beyond the walls of the small fort at Annapolis Royal.)

In the spring of 1750 Major Charles Lawrence under orders from his commander Edward Cornwallis went to the isthmus with 400 men to dislodge La Corne. It was then that Le Loutre determined that the people at Beaubassin should not live under direct English supervision and proceeded to set fire, with his own hand, to the parish church. His followers, both red and white, went about systematically burning down the rest of this Acadian village, thus forcing the occupants to relocate away from peninsular Nova Scotia.17 Lawrence retired from the field without any gains or losses. He returned in September, sporting the insignia of newly appointed Lieutenant-Colonel. This time he had more soldiers [together with John Gorham and his Rangers] and was supported by the sea forces under John Rous and Edward How ("seventeen small vessels and about seven hundred men"). This time, Lawrence was meaning to take firm control of the area in and around Beaubassin. Le Loutre and his men were there to greet Lawrence. They "had thrown up a breastwork along the shore and manned it with his Indians and his painted and befeathered Acadians." Le Loutre and his forces left the area to retire behind the river Missaguash, but not before finishing the job which he had started in the spring. "... the Indians and their Acadian allies set the houses and barns on fire, and laid waste the whole district, leaving the inhabitants [at least those who survived the spring conflagration] no choice but to seek food and shelter with the French." It is reported that Gorham's Rangers gave no quarter to any of the French Indians; one day 25 scalps were brought back to camp.18 So, in 1750, La Corne, Le Loutre and their followers were driven from the isthmus and into the woods of present day New Brunswick, there to regroup. Lawrence then proceeded to erect an English fort, on a promontory south of the river Missaguash; in the spring, 1751, the French in response to the building of Fort Lawrence countered and built Fort Beausejour. (I should remind the reader that these fights between the French and the English were going on during a time of "peace," between the French and the English -- The Seven Years War not having been declared until May of 1756.)

During these years between the wars, 1748-1756, the Indians who allied themselves with the French were to keep pressure up on English settlements. The tactics of the Abenaki, amply encouraged by men of "religion," were essentially like that of the Iroquois, in that they would pounce "upon peaceful settlers by surprise, and generally in the night. ... [and] systematically to butcher helpless farmers and their families ..." These French priests took full advantage of the vivid imaginations of these children of the woods and told them stories which they loved to hear. For example, "they told the Indians that Jesus Christ was a Frenchman, and his mother, the Virgin, a French lady; that the English had murdered him, and that the best way to gain his favor was to revenge his death."19 Le Loutre, in all of this, was to play no small role. He, many believed, had a mystical control over the Indians, such that he could stir them up directly against the English, at his will. These attacks, incidentally, were very effective and the objective was easily met. It became impossible in the late 1740s and through the 1750s for an English group to go beyond the protective walls of the community in order to work the land, or to harvest the sea and the woods around them, unless there was, nearby, a covering party of armed men (see, The Indian Threat). This was a big expense to a struggling colony and a real deterrent to new immigrants, especially when word got around back home in England. Further, one can only wonder what role, if any, history would assign to Le Loutre in respect to the fight at the St Croix River; when, on March 18th, 1750, Gorham and his 60 Rangers were ambushed by a larger Indian force on the banks of the St Croix River, near Windsor, a battle I take up, in some detail, elsewhere in these pages.

As we will see from our larger story told in these pages, Edward How, a New Englander who did much for the early English establishment in Nova Scotia, was killed by an "atrocious act of treachery." One of the Indians in disguise, etienne Le Batard [some say it was another, Jean-Baptiste Cope] laid a trap for How. As Parkman20 describes the event: an Indian, dressed as a French officer, waived from the French line looking for a parley. Edward How, always ready for a parley, and one who could speak both French and Micmac, proceeded to neutral ground; while thus proceeding, under a white flag of truce, a shot or shots rang out from the French side of the Missaguash; and, Edward How fell to the marshy ground which covered the short distant between Fort Lawrence and Fort Beausejour, mortally wounded, to be of no more service to his English king, ever again. It was a concealed line of Indians who jumped up and surprised Edward How; Le Loutre's Indians. The Indians were there for sure and some would say Le Loutre was with them21 and took pleasure of seeing his old enemy drop to the ground. Le Loutre was responsible for Edward How's death -- as to what degree, history has yet to determine.

After forty years of having no more than but the barest military presence at their lonely outposts of Canso and Annapolis Royal, the English, throughout a three year period from 1749 to 1752, were to -- finally -- expand their military presence in peninsular Nova Scotia. This was accomplished in relatively short order and in a most impressive manner: Halifax was founded in 1749; Captain John Rous and Mr Edward How shortly thereafter squashed the French presence on the St John and signed treaties with the Indians throughout Acadia;22 Fort Sackville at the head of Bedford Basin was constructed;23 a block house by Captain Handfield was erected at Mines;24 a Vice-Admiralty Court was established at Halifax (thus promoting the capture of French ships in the area);25 Fort Edward was erected at Pisiquid (Windsor); Fort Lawrence at the isthmus. This impressive buildup drove Le Loutre, in the summer of 1752, to go to Quebec with a view of enlisting the help of the authorities at that place. It did not seem that he was to get much help, as those at Quebec had their own list of problems and little in the way of military men and supplies. Le Loutre returned to Acadia and shortly thereafter found passage to France, presumably to appeal to a higher authority. By the end of December 1752, Le Loutre was in France.26

Upon his arrival in France, Le Loutre soon had an audience with certain of the powerful courtiers. He charged that the ambassadors of France were not being nearly tough enough in their dealings with their counterparts, the ambassadors of England. We will know from a full reading of my story that the English authorities (Governor Shirley being among them) were discussing the North American frontiers in a very leisurely pace while being entertained in the finest homes of Paris. Le Loutre fed the appetites of the ambitious and filed a written report with the court:

"... he [Le Loutre] recommended dealing firmly in order to define strictly the territories ceded in 1713 and to adhere to the articles of the treaty of Utrecht, which granted the British only a strip of land at the southeast tip of Acadia including the former Port-Royal and the surrounding area. If, as a last resort, a larger block of territory had to be given up, the missionary proposed that the line of demarcation between the French and British possessions in Acadia be drawn from Cobequid to Canso. The Baie des Chaleurs and Gaspe regions, which Le Loutre included in Acadia, should remain French, and the port of Canso should become neutral, with fishing rights reserved solely for the French."27

In the spring of 1753, Le Loutre returned from France aboard the Bizarre. It would appear he continued his work among the Indians, work mostly designed to stir them up; he used at least some of the money he brought with him from France to buy English scalps from the Indians.28 In the summer of 1753 a group of Indians came to Halifax, and there they entertained everyone; after being presented with gifts, they were sent homeward in a schooner under English command. On the way, up the eastern shore, the Indians seized the vessel and murdered the crew. The Indians were paid for this, or some other contemporary murder: for Prevost, in writing just four weeks later, says: "'Last month the savages took eighteen English scalps, and Monsieur Le Loutre was obliged to pay them eighteen hundred livres, Acadian money, which I have reimbursed him. ... Excite them to keep the Indians in our interest, but do not let them compromise us. Act always so as to make the English appear as aggressors.'"29 Whatever Le Loutre's accomplishments during 1753-4, it is plain the French authorities continued to be pleased with him; in 1754 he was appointed vicar-general of Acadia. But within the year of his appointment Le Loutre's career in Nova Scotia was to come to an end.

The English had a major win in Nova Scotia during 1755 in the taking of Fort Beausejour at the isthmus.30 Monckton's success led to the end, finally, of the French military presence at the isthmus, and, more generally, in Acadia; so, too, with the taking of Fort Beausejour, Le Loutre's career in Nova Scotia was finally brought to an end. The British would have been pleased to have taken Le Loutre prisoner, but he gave the English the slip. He managed to vacate the fort by dressing as a woman and mixing in with a large number of other Acadians, who had been turned loose by the British just after the fort's capture. Le Loutre headed into the woods and eventually turned up at Quebec. Late in the summer of 1755 Le Loutre found his way to Louisbourg, and, soon thereafter, was sailing for France. Unfortunately for Le Loutre the ship he was on was captured by British naval forces.31 It would appear, that this time the British knew they had the infamous Le Loutre and so clapped him in irons and brought him to England where he remained in prison for eight years and released when the war was formally concluded in 1763.

As MacDonald put it:

"... through the wilderness to Quebec, oppressed by the weight of a lost cause, disguised in the coarse habiliments of a serving woman, to endure the contempt of the French Governor-General, the rebukes of a Bishop incensed at his unclerical conduct, and the perils of a voyage to France, only to fall at last into the hands of his pursuers on the high seas and suffer a lingering captivity on the Isle of Jersey, while the star of France sank beneath the occidental horizon."32

"He [Le Loutre] soon embarked for France; but the English captured him on the way, and kept him eight years in Elizabeth Castle, on the Island of Jersey. Here on one occasion a soldier on guard made a dash at the father, tried to stab him with his bayonet, and was prevented with great difficulty. He declared that, when he was with his regiment in Acadia, he had fallen into the hands of Le Loutre, and narrowly escaped being scalped alive, the missionary having doomed him to this fate, and with his own hand drawn a knife round his head as a beginning of the operation. The man swore so fiercely that he would have his revenge that the officer in command transferred him to another post."33

Though Le Loutre was trained for, and went to Acadia in order to be a missionary among the Indians of Acadia, one would have to ask whether in his work with the natives he better served God or his political masters in France. This much, we might observe: Le Loutre used the Indians. He contrived to use them on the one hand to murder the English, and on the other to terrify the Acadians.35 Le Loutre, too, would become most upset at any Acadian who was so disloyal as to trade with the English. In the result "Provision became very Dear, as the Indians not only made War upon us but freighted the French Peasantry from bring any to us."36 The respected historian, James Hannay, made it clear what he thought: "The plan which he [Le Loutre] pursued consistently from first to last with the Acadians, was to threaten them with the vengeance of the savages if they submitted to the English, and to refuse the sacraments to all who would not obey his commands."37 Le Loutre, himself, revealed his approach in a letter he wrote in July of 1749 to a government official back in France:

"As we cannot openly oppose the English ventures, I think that we cannot do better than to incite the Indians to continue warring on the English; my plan is to persuade the Indians to send word to the English that they will not permit new settlements to be made in Acadia ... I shall do my best to make it look to the English as if this plan comes from the Indians and that I have no part in it."38

"He was a politically involved missionary, stubborn and prepared to make up for the lack of French and civil government in Acadia. His activity was displeasing to the government in Halifax, and even to certain French officers. He was probably excessively zealous, and his conduct was often questionable, but his sincere devotion to the cause of French Acadia cannot be doubted."39

"Le Loutre was a man of boundless egotism, a violent spirit of domination, an intense hatred of the English, and a fanaticism that stopped at nothing. Towards the Acadians he was a despot ... he dragooned even the unwilling into aiding his schemes."40

_______________________________

^[2] "I [Le Loutre] left Louisbourg for my mission on the 22nd day of September. On the eighth day, after having passed through high winds and tempests, I fortunately reached dry ground ..." As contained in a letter written to the authorities back in France, dated October 1st, 1738 at Tatamagouche, which, in part, is set out at page 10 of Frank H. Patterson's book, A History of Tatamagouche.

^[3] Le Loutre had a middle class background; both his father and his mother's family were in the paper making business; the family was located southwest of Paris, at Morlaix in the parish of Saint-Maurice.

^[4] Patterson's "Old Cobequid and its Destruction" NSHS#23 (1936), p. 56.

^[5] DCB. We see, in January, 1741, where Mascarene wrote to "Monsieur de Loutre" asking him to turn over the King's rents which le Loutre apparently had received at Cobequid. (Original Minutes of his Majesty's Council at Annapolis Royal, 1720-39, edited by Archibald MacMechan which work, in these pages, is referred to as "NS Archives III" at p. 142.)

^[6] Duvivier noted in his journal the value of Le Loutre's presence during the siege of Annapolis Royal in September.

^[7] DCB, vol. iv, p. 454.

^[8] French forces ("three hundred troops, chiefly Canadians") left Quebec in the dead of winter (January 15, 1745) under the command of the Marins.

^[9] There is evidence (Wrong, p. 43) that Marin eventually made it through; but that on approaching Louisbourg, and finding it captured, threw "himself back into the woods with his five or six hundred men, to get back to Acadia." Hannay, in his Acadia, picks up on this suggestion that Marin, in fact, made it to Louisbourg, but too late, and seeing that Louisbourg had fallen to the invading English colonials, did not engage the occupying English with his comparatively small and ill equipped force. I think we might conclude that Le Loutre and his peninsular Indians were with this force coming to the aid of Louisbourg, and not, in fact at Louisbourg during the 1745 siege. From The Royal Navy and North America (London: Navy Records Society, Vol. 118, 1973) p. 434, we read that Le Loutre, "fled to Quebec after the fall of Louisbourg."

^[10] Likely one of the numerous smaller vessels which made up the French Armada, which consisted of 20 warships, 32 transports and 21 smaller auxiliary vessels. (See Macdonald's The Last Siege of Louisbourg, p. 23.) "... with French exped. at Chebucto 1746 and returned to France ..." (The Royal Navy and North America, op. cit. p. 434.)

^[11] The Royal Navy and North America, op. cit. p. 434. As we can see from the DCB, Le Loutre set sail from France on two separate occasions in an effort to regain Acadia; but, each time he was captured and "ended up in British prisons, from which he had been released after successfully concealing his identity by using the names of Rosanvern and Huet."

^[12] These arguments as we see from our larger story broke out into bloody fights at the isthmus concluding with the taking of Fort Beausejour by Monckton in 1755.

^[13] Hannay, op. cit., p. 361.

^[14] For example, the native Indians were driven to attack the English, during August, 1749, at Canso (NSHS, vol. 30, p. 53); at Dartmouth (across the harbour from Halifax) where an English working party were attacked and killed; at Piziquid (Windsor) where a "party of about three hundred Micmac and St. John Indians" attacked the newly built English fort (NSHS, vol. 30, pp. 56,70; also see Hannay, op. cit. at p. 360). While the Indians did kill a number of settlers at Dartmouth, they did not kill anyone when they laid siege to the English fort at Windsor, Fort Edward; at both times, however, they took prisoners. The English prisoners were herded along by the Indians and eventually turned over to the French soldiers at the Tantramar River at the Isthmus; eventually these captives turned up at Quebec where they were ransomed back to the English. It should be said, that these difficulties experienced by the English, during 1749, were experienced, notwithstanding that the British during this year were at peace with both the French and their Indian allies. A reasonable conclusion for a historian to reach, given Le Loutre's proclivities and temperament, was that he was behind these recited events, events which had the effect of keeping the new and struggling English colony at Halifax completely on edge: the English, at the time, had come to the same conclusion.

^[15] All the Acadians ever wanted, was, to be left alone; their reaction to the pressure from both the French (through Le Loutre) and the English was much the same: mixed. They were caught in the middle and waffled on their allegiances for 45 years, or so. The Acadians, unfortunately, miscalculated when, during September/October of 1749, they, 1,000 of them, signed a petition and presented it through their deputies to Cornwallis and his councilors at Halifax, whereby the Acadians flatly declared they would not take an unconditional oath of allegiance.

^[16] As quoted by Parkman, op. cit., at p. 119; and by DCB, vol. iv, p. 455.

^[17] Parkman, op. cit.; NSHS, vol. 30, pp. 65-6.

^[18] Parkman, op. cit., pp. 121-2; as to the dealings between Lawrence and La Corne, see the Canadian Archives Reports, 1905, vol, ii, pp. 320 et seq.; and see NSHS, vol. 30 (1954), p. 68-69.

^[19] Parkman, Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, pp. 391-5.

^[20] Montcalm and Wolfe (vol. 1), pp. 123-4.

^[21] Hannay, op. cit. puts Le Loutre at the scene (see p. 371): "How had been accustomed to meet French officers at the Misseguash with flags of truce when there was any communication to be made between one fort and the other. Le Loutre, taking advantage of this circumstance, dressed up an Indian named Cope like a French officer, and sent him down to the river with a white flag. This signal brought How down to the Misseguash to meet the pretended French officer, and when he got within range, a party of Indians which lay concealed behind the dike rose, and firing a volley, shot him dead."

^[22] Brebner, New England's Outpost, p. 166; NSHS, vol. 30, p. 49.

^[23] NSHS, vol. 30, p. 53.

^[24] Hannay, op. cit. at p. 360.

^[25] NSHS, vol. 33 (1961), p. 70.

^[26] DCB, vol. vi, 456.

^[27] DCB, vol. iv, p. 456.

^[28] Ibid., p. 457.

^[29] Parkman, Montcalm and Wolfe (vol. 1), p. 108-10.

^[30] Thus, the British had complete success in crushing the French defences along the northern border of Acadia; but this was the only success that the English had in their ambitious campaign against the French in North America during 1755. In 1755, the French were to be attacked -- notwithstanding that the two countries were at peace -- at four points at once: General Braddock and his regulars were to attack Fort Duquesne (Pittsburgh); Shirley against Fort Niagara; Colonel William Johnson, Crown Point; and Colonel Monckton, Acadia. Braddock's attempt turned into a disaster, he never reached his objective and he was killed in the attempt; the Niagara expedition under Shirley was delayed in starting and got no further than Oswego; and while Johnson had better success than Braddock and Shirley, he did not meet all his objectives: only Monckton achieved what he had set out to do.

^[31] "... taken prisoner by Hawke's fleet Sept. 1755; imprisoned on Jersey 1755-63 ..." (The Royal Navy and North America, op. cit. p. 434.)

^[32] Macdonald, op. cit., p. 35.

^[33] Parkman in citing Knox, Montcalm and Wolfe (vol. 1), pp. 261-2.

^[34] For a bit of a development of Le Loutre's activities in his last few years, see DCB, vol. iv, p. 457.

^[35] And terrify the Acadians he did. "Le Loutre made it clear that if a particular Acadian family did not do what he, their spiritual leader, wanted them to do, then he would abandon them, deprive them of their priests, have their wives and children carried off, and their property laid waste by the Indians." [Montcalm and Wolfe (vol. 1), p. 113.]

^[36] Brebner, Op. Cit., p. 174.).

^[37] Hannay, op. cit., pp. 361 & 373.

^[38] As quoted by the DCB, vol. iv, p. 455.

^[39] Ibid., p. 458.

^[40] Montcalm and Wolfe (vol. 1), p. 119. It should not be concluded, based on Le Loutre's activity, that the priests of the Roman Catholic Church were politically scheming rogues. The likes of Le Loutre are totally unlike those who had first involved themselves in the wilds of Canada and in the development of the French establishment in North America. "In the wilderness dens of the Hurons or the Iroquois, the early Jesuit was a marvel of self-sacrificing zeal; his successor, half missionary and half agent of the King, had thought for this world as well as the next." (Parkman, A Half Century of Conflict (vol. 1), pp. 217.)