Note 70 — THE FATE OF EVANGELINE'S COUNTRYMEN[70]

From Volume IV, Chapter VIII, of "The History of the United States," as published in 1862. Acadia was the name of the original French colony in the eastern part of Canada, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and adjacent islands. It was first colonized by the French in 1604. It is more particularly of the French settlers in Nova Scotia that Bancroft writes. These were deported by the British in 1755. Longfellow's poem "Evangeline" is founded on an incident in this deportation, by which two lovers were hopelessly parted. Hawthorne is said first to have heard this story and considered it as the theme for a novel, but, unable to use it satisfactorily to himself, he passed it on to Longfellow.