The Acadian settlement was destroyed in the 1755 Bay of Fundy Campaign of the Expulsion of the Acadians. On October 27, 1755 fourteen transport ships embarked 1,600 Acadians from the region of Grand-Pré and "Rivière-aux-Canards", as well as 1,300 from Pisiguit and Cobequid. They joined up with ten other ships in the Bay of Fundy with 1,900 Acadiens from the region of Beaubassin. The ships were over crowded with standing room only. Governor Charles Lawrence had given the order from returning. It was for this reason that the villages of Grand-Pré, Pisiguit, and Rivière-aux-Canards were burnt to the ground. With no one to maintain the dykes, a severe storm in November 1759 beached the Grand Dyke and flooded up to the Middle Dyke which was badly damaged, returning hundreds of acres of farmland to tidal marshes.