1 A reduced sketch from a painting owned by Mrs. Anna H. C. Howard of Brooklyn, N. Y., which came to her by descent from Sir William Pepperrell. The canvas is very dark and obscure, and the artist may have missed some of the details, particularly of the walls along the shore. The point of view seems to be from the northwest side of the interior harbor, near the bridge (seen in the foreground), which spans one of the little inlets, as shown in some of the maps. This position is near what are called "Hale's Barracks in the draft of the town and harbor on the preceding page. The dismantled ships along the opposite shore are apparently the French fleet, while an English ship is near the bridge. The following letter describes the present condition of the ground:- BOSTON, June 4, 1886. MY DEAR MR. WINSOR, It gives me great pleasure to comply with your request, and to give my recollections of Louisburg as seen in September last. The historical town of that name, or rather the ruin of the old fortress, lies perhaps three miles from the modern town, which is a small village, situated on the northeasterly side of the bay or harbor. The inhabitants of the neighborhood live, for the most part, by fishing and other business connected with that branch of industry, eking out their livelihood by the cultivation of a rocky and barren soil. The road from the village to the old fortress runs along the western shore of the bay, passing at intervals the small houses of the fishermen. and leaving on the left the site of the Royal Battery, which is still discernible. This was the first outpost of the French taken at the siege, and its gallant capture proved subsequently to be of the greatest service to the English. From this point the ruins of the fortress begin to loom up and show their real character. Soon the walls are reached, and the remains of the former bastions on the land side are easily recognized. This land front is more than half a mile in length, and stretches from the sea on the left to the bay on the right, forming a line of works that would seem to be impregnable to any and all assaults. From its crown a good idea can be gained of the size of the fortifications, which extend in its entire circuit more than a mile and a half in length, and inclose an area of a hundred and twenty acres, more or less. The public buildings within the fortress were of stone, and, with the help of a guide, their sites can easily be made out. The buryingground, on the point of land to the eastward, where hundreds of bodies were buried, is still shown; and the sheep and cattle graze all unconscious of the great deeds that have been done in the neighborhood. Taken all in all, the place is full of the most interesting associations, and speaks of the period when the sceptre of power in America was balancing between France and England; and Louisburg forms to-day the grandest ruin in this part of the continent. Very truly yours, SAMUEL A. GREEN. perrell. It follows an English plan procured by Mr. Bancroft in London, and closely resembles the sketch owned by a descendant of Pepperrell, and herewith given. Haliburton in his History of Nova Scotia gives a similar plan, as well as a draught of the harbor. The plan of the town and the vicinity which is given by Brown in his Cape Breton is also reproduced herewith. The earliest of the more elaborate charts of the harbor is that published by Des Barres in Oct., 1781. We find a rude sketch of the Island battery in Curwen's Journal as edited by Ward (Boston, 4th ed, 1864), which was sent by that observer from Louisbourg, July 25, 1745. A reproduction of this sketch, herewith given, needs the following key: There is in the Collections of the Maine Hist. Soc. (viii. p. 120) a life of Lieut.-Col. Arthur Noble, who, by order of Brigadier Waldo, led on May 23 the unsuccessful attack on this battery. The Catalogue of the king's maps in the British Museum (vol. i. 718, etc.) shows plans of the town and fortifications (1745) in MS. by Durell and Bastide; others of the town and harbor (1755) by William Green; with views by Bastide (1749), Admiral Knowles (1756), Ince (1758, engraved by Canot, 1762), and Thomas Wright (1766). Jefferys also published in copperplate A view of the landing of the New England forces in the expedition against Cape Breton, 1745. (Carter "The embrasures in the front are not more than three feet above the ground. 1. Fronting mouth of harbor: 22 embrasures; 21 guns, 36 and 48 pounders. 2. Barracks. 3. Sally-ports. 4. Wall framed of timber, and covered with plank, and filled with stone and lime, in which is an embrasure with a 48 pounder. 5. Wall, defended with two small swivels. 6. The place at which whale-boats might easily land 500 men. 7. One entire rock, perpendicular on the face, and absolutely impossible to be climbed. 8. Piquet of large timber, fastened by iron clamps, drilled into the solid rock. 9. Commandant's apartment, five feet high. 10. The gate under the wall, about four feet wide, formed like a common sally-port; not straight, but made an angle of 160 degrees. Ten men can prevent ten hundred making their way; this wall has but four guns and two swivels. "I paced the island, and judged it to be about 56 yards wide and 150 long at the widest part, nearly." Brown, iii. p. 335.) A copy of this print belongs to Dr. John C. Warren of Boston. Three months after the fall of Louisbourg there was another treaty with the eastern Indians, Sept. 28 — Oct. 22, 1745. (Mass. Archives, xxix. 386.) The renewed activity of the French is shown in the N. Y. Col. Docs., x. p. 3. A little later, Dec. 12, 1745, Shirley made his first speech to the Massachusetts Assembly after his return to Boston, and communicated the King's thanks for "setting on foot and executing the late difficult and expensive enterprise against Cape Breton."1 The next event of importance in the Acadian peninsula was the attack of the French upon an English post, which is known as the "battle of Minas." The English accounts (Boston Weekly Post Boy, March 2 and 9, 1747), which give the date Jan. 31, old style, and the French (official report), Feb. II, new style, are edited by Dr. O'Callaghan with the articles of capitulation, in the New Eng. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., April, 1855, p. 107. For general references see Haliburton's Nova Scotia, ii. 132; Williamson's Maine, ii. 250; Han 1 Amer. Magazine (Boston), Dec., 1745. Some of Shirley's admirers caused his portrait to be painted, and some years later they gave it to the town of Boston, and it was hung in Faneuil Hall. Town Records, 1742 57, p. 26. nay (p. 349) and the other histories of Nova For the attack at Minas in particular see the Scotia. "Relation d'une expédition faite sur les Anglois dans les pays de l'Acadie, le 11 Fév., 1747, par un détachement de Canadiens,” dated at Montreal, Douglass (Summary, etc., i. 316) says: "Three companies from Rhode Island were shipwrecked forces being overpowered by the Canadians at proclaimed in Boston, May 10, 1749, and a reMinas with a considerable slaughter." The French account of these transactions of the command of Ramezay is in a "Journal de la compagne du détachement de Canada à l'AcaVie et aux Mines en 1746 et 1747" (June, 1746, to March, 1747). It is in the Parkman MSS. in the Mass. Hist. Society, New France, i. pp. 59–153. print of it issued there. Shirley (June 3, 1749) writes to Gov. Wentworth that he had agreed with nine Indian chiefs, then in Boston, to hold a conference at Casco bay, Sept. 27. (N. H. Prov. Papers, v. 127.) Meanwhile the English government, in pursu 1 One of Des Barres' coast views 1779. (In Harvard College library.) 2 One of Des Barres' coast views, marked A view of Cape Baptist in the entrance into the basin of Mines, hearing W. by N., two miles distant. (In Harvard College library.) ance of an effort to anglicize the peninsula,1 had planned the transportation to Nova Scotia of an equipped colony under Edward Cornwallis, which arrived at Chebucto harbor in the summer of 1749, and founded Halifax. A treaty with the Indians was held there Aug. 15, 1749. (Mass. Hist. Coll., ix. 220.) There is a full-size fac-simile of the document in Akins's Public Doc. of Nova Scotia. It was in confirmation of the Boston treaty of Dec. 15, 1725, which is embodied in the new treaty. Another treaty with the eastern Indians was made at Falmouth, Oct. 16, 1749. (Mass. Archives, xxix. 427; xxxiv.; Mass. Hist. Coll., ix. 220; N. H. Hist. Soc. Coll., ii. 264; Williamson's Maine, i. 259, taken from Mass. Council Records, 1734-57, p. 108; Hutchinson, iii. 4.) This treaty was proclaimed in Boston, Oct. 27. Cf. Journal of the proceedings of the commissioners appointed for managing a treaty of peace at Falmouth, Sept. 27, 1749, between Thomas Hutchinson, John Choate [and others], commissioned by Gov. Phips, and the eastern Indians, Boston [1749]. (Brinley, i. no. 441; Harv. Col. lib. 5325.39.) This tract is reprinted in Maine Hist. Coll., iv. 145. There was another conference with the Penobscots and Norridgewocks, Aug. 3-8, 1750. (Mass. Archives, xxix. 429.) A tract to encourage emigration to the new colony at Halifax was printed in London in 1750, and reprinted in Dublin: A genuine account of Nova Scotia, to which is added his majesty's proposals as an encouragement to those who are willing to settle there. Cf. the German tract: Historische und Geographische Beschreibung von NeuSchottland, Franckfurt, 1750. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 935.) Counter-statements not conducive to the colony's help, appeared in John Wilson's Genuine narrative of the transactions in Nova Scotia since the settlement, June, 1749, till Aug. 5, 1751 with the particular attempts of the Indians to disturb the colony, London, 1751. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 966.) There are papers relating to the first settlement of Halifax in Akins's Documents, 495; and a paper on the first council meeting at Halifax, by T. B. Akins, in the Nova Scotia Hist. Soc. Coll., vol. ii. See also Murdoch's Nova Scotia, ii. ch. II. Various maps of Halifax and the harbor were made during the subsequent years. The Catalogue of the king's maps (i. 483) in the British Museum shows several manuscript draughts. A small engraved plan was published in the Gentleman's Magazine, 1750, p. 295. A large map, dedicated to the Earl of Halifax, is called: Carte du havre de Chibucto avec le plan de la ville de Halifax sur la coste de l'Accadie ou Nova Scotia, publiée par Jean Rocque, Charing Cross, 1750.2 A smaller Plan des havens von Chebucto und der stadt Halifax was published at Hamburg, 1751. Jefferys issued a large Chart of the Harbor of Halifax, 1759, which was repeated in his General Topography of North America and West Indies, London, 1768. A “Plan de la Baye de Chibouctou nommée par les Anglois Halifax," bears date 1763. Another is in the Set of plans and forts (No. 7) published in London in 1763. In the Des Barres series of coast charts of a later period (1781) there is a large draft of the harbor, with colored marginal views of the coast. In 1752-54 there were other conferences with the eastern Indians. Instructions for treating with the eastern Indi ans given to the commissioners appointed for that service by the Hon. Spencer Phips . . . in 1752, Boston, 1865. Fifty copies printed from the original manuscript, for Samuel G. Drake. (Sabin, xv. 62,579; Brinley, i. no. 443.) Journal of the proceedings of Jacob Wendell, Samuel Watts, Thomas Hubbard, and Chamber Russel, commissioners to treat with the eastern Indians, held at St. Georges, Oct. 13, 1752, in order to renew and confirm a general peace, Boston, 1752. (Sabin, ix. 36,736; Brinley, i. no. 442.) The original treaty is in the Mass. Archives, xxxiv. A conference held at St. George's on the 20th day of September, 1753, between commissioners appointed by [Gov.] Shirley and the Indians of the Penobscot [and Norridgewock] tribes, Boston, 1753. (Brinley, i. no. 444; Sabin, no. 15,436 ; Harv. Coll. lib., 5325.42.) Cf. the treaty in Maine Hist. Coll., iv. 168. The original treaties with the Penobscots at St. Georges (Sept. 21) and the Norridgewocks at Richmond (Sept. 29) are in the Mass. Archives, xxxiv. A journal of the proceedings at two conferences begun to be held at Falmouth, 28th June, 1754, between William Shirley, Governor, etc., and the Chiefs of the Norridegwock Indians, and on the 5th of July with the Chiefs of the Penobscot In P. Mascarene 1 Mascarene in a letter to Shirley, April 6, 1748, undertakes to show the difficulties of composing the jeal Dusies of the English towards the Acadians. Mass. Hist. Coll., vi. 120. 2 In Harv. Coll. library "Collection of Nova Scotia maps." |