The Morning Freeman [Saint-Jean], January 30, 1875
(Catholic allegiance)

Dreadful news comes from Gloucester. A civil war is indeed raging in that persecuted county and blood has been shed. We fear that when the facts are analysed it will be found that this civil war is also religious in its character. Fearful is the responsibility which must for ever rest upon those who have brought about so dreadful a state of things for the people of Caraquet, as we have repeatedly stated were long known as the quietest and most peaceable and inoffensive in America.

[...]

But all this has been suddenly changed. Armed bodies of men have come in collision, and human life has been sacrificed.

To understand the true state of the case it is necessary to review briefly the facts known to the public.

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Sixteen persons were seized and held by this armed force, but when they came to the house of one Andrew Albert they found that a number of persons, alarmed at what was going on, had gathered there not to attack these armed strangers, but to avoid them. At this house a collision occurred. The accounts telegraphed to the organs of the government are, as usual, self-contradictory, but this much seems too certain that shots were exchanged, and that one man was instantly killed, and one other received a wound from which he died next morning. This is, indeed, most deplorable, and so sad is the state of affairs that we can only wish and hope that bloodshed will end here, for a telegram to the Telegraph says that fifty or sixty more well armed men would probably go down to Caraquet immediately to assist their friends. Nothing of this kind has occurred in any part of the Province for many years. Peace, content, good will and kindly feeling prevailed everywhere until this wicked attempt was to force this dreadful system upon the people. Evil passions have since that been excited, and now, thanks in no small measure to the means taken to terrify and coerce the people of Gloucester, the excitement has culminated in this most lamentable shedding of blood. Nothing could have been more unexpected, nothing more shocking than this.