During the mid-eighteenth century British soldiers expelled thousands of Catholic French settlers, known as Acadians, from Nova Scotia. A two-volume history of this event, titled The Neutral French; or, The Exiles of Nova Scotia, had recently been published in Rhode Island, describing how the “the injuries they sustained were inflicted in cold blood—in open and shameless violation of treaties, most solemnly guaranteeing to them protection, their liberties as freemen, the free exercise of their religion, and the protection of their property.” (Williams, Neutral French, v; see also Hodson, Acadian Diaspora, chap. 1; and Plank, Unsettled Conquest, chap. 7.)

Williams, Catherine Read. The Neutral French; or, The Exiles of Nova Scotia. 2nd ed. 2 vols. Providence, RI: By the author, 1841.

Hodson, Christopher. The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Plank, Geoffrey. An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign against the Peoples of Acadia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.