22 ACADIENSIS
since such view of the question, the " restoration " rather than the " capture " of the American islands in Passama- quoddy Bay, alleviated the minor miseries of a bloodless warfare, for the Eastporters, as " subjects restored to their rightful sovereign," fared better than as prisoners of war.
Sir Thomas Hardy, Nelson's trusted friend, and Colonel Gubbins, were the chief English officers at Eastport, with whom David Owen, at Campobello, held friendly converse. At first David's subjects hoped to settle ancient scores with some of their old-time personal enemies, but they soon found that the new English masters forbade, as their American predecessors had forbidden, the use of threats or blows in getting one's rights. Then recourse was had to long, stately letters addressed by Owen to Gubbins, in which the former rehearsed the grievances of his people, for had he not a right to wax eloquent when he had urged that the County f Charlotte, New Brunswick, and of Washington, Massachusetts, (it was not then called Maine), should remain neutral, and had he not adjured the Indians, who fled to his woods for safety, to believe that the English would burn neither their wigwams nor their chapel 1 In spite of such protests, when Moose Island (Eastport) was actually taken by the British, with the self- complacency of a solitary magnate, David Owen wrote to his distant peers, " I could have taken it, Eastport, with a gun brig and my own militia. I am in possession of all except Moose Island."
However, after the " contemptible Americans " had been expelled, Owen's wrath became greater, since, without his knowledge, the Commanding Royal Engineer had ex- plored ground for military purposes on Campobello, and had desired Owen's militia to help him. Moreover, his tenants were oppressed by a notice to drill off the island, which they regarded as an indignity, whereupon Owen had petitioned his Royal Highness, George, Prince Regent of England, that the "inhabitants of Campobello should
