Nova Scotia (12 page)

Frost Heaves, Cost Over-runs and
Countless Setbacks

Île Royale (Cape Breton) was a good
location to offer protection for the vital French fishing interests
off the coast, but it would also be a good place to provide
protection for Quebec from English naval attacks coming /from
across the Atlantic. Early French fishermen had found the shoreline
here to be a good place to dry fish, but attempts to actually
settle Acadians there had not gone very far. The Acadians loved
their mainland farms and wanted to stay put. Now, with the loss of
most of Nova Scotia, the powers in France realized it was time to
get serious about settlement and military protection. Louisbourg
Harbour was chosen as the site for a more permanent community,
because it was close to the fishing grounds and did not freeze in
winter; it was relatively unaffected by the spring ice packs coming
out of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and it looked like an easy place to
defend against attack. About 150 French settlers from Placentia in
Newfoundland were shipped in to get things underway. d

   
Louisbourg began as an unruly town with problems of excess
drinking, gambling and rowdiness among the soldiers. The early
inhabitants were in sharp contrast to the agrarian, family-centred
Acadian farmers settling into what was now British-controlled
Acadia.

   
By January of 1715, the civilian population of Louisbourg had
grown to 700. Entrepreneurs had set up shops and trade had begun,
but there was not enough enthusiasm in France for this outpost to
keep it well-supplied with provisions, building supplies and other
necessities for growth. There were dreams of making Louisbourg into
a great port, not necessarily a fortress but a trading capital
linking trade between North America, France and the West Indies.
Louisbourg’s Governor Pontchartrain, however, believed that if the
town were to survive, it was going to need more than the soldiers
stationed there. It would need walls and major armaments. In his
letter to the controller general at Versailles he
wrote:

I will not expand, sir, on the
urgent indispensable necessity of solidly fortifying this new
establishment since you understand its importance . . . If France
were to lose this island, it would be irreparable; and, as a
rnesult, it would be necessary to abandon the rest of North
America.

   
The governor’s request did not fall on deaf ears.
Jean-François du Verger de Verville was sent to Louisbourg as chief
engineer for a mighty fort, and so began the task of building a
structure made of “mortared walls” with moats all around, two great
bastions and additional smaller ones within the framework. The
project was plagued with unforeseen problems. Fog, high humidity
and rain caused the mortar to set improperly or sometimes even wash
away. Walls would not stay in place because of frost heaves and
loose soil. Skilled builders, as well as financing, were a long way
off. It was, after all, a massive undertaking for France to stake
so much of its hopes of defence on this one fort. Within the
fortress, government buildings were constructed, as were warehouses
and a hospital. On the shorelines, wharves were built and a
lighthouse was erected.

Corruption, Drunkenness and
Smallpox

Chateau St. Louis, at the centre of Louisbourg, would be
home to the governor and his council chamber. A number of
spectacular and splendid rooms in one wing would almost make
leaders feel they were home in the wealthy comforts of France. A
second wing would provide only the most fundamental basics of life
as barracks for the soldier population. These soldiers were from
the *
Compagnies
Détachées
established for
colonial work. Stationed here would be between six and twenty-four
companies, each made up of fifty to seventy men. Quite a few
soldiers were allowed to bring their wives, and others married from
the local civilian population while stationed at the fortress.
Louisbourg was by then a growing community of not just soldiers but
families. Yet family life here inside the great walls of stone and
earth was radically different from that of the Acadian
farmers.

   
It was common for soldiers to moonlight with some sort of
sideline, often one that involved selling booze. Louisbourg was a
fortress city that nearly floated on alcohol. Drunkenness, it was
said, was a greater problem here than anywhere in Europe. All kinds
of fines and other punishments were decreed in an attempt to keep
the men sober and industrious during the day, but these measures
proved to be unsuccessful.

   
There was legal trade going in and out from the wharves, but
also a lucrative and extensive illicit trading with New England and
the Acadians living on English soil. It started with cod but grew
to include all manner of goods until Louisbourg was a de facto free
port. If it was profitable, you could get away with it at
Louisbourg, where everyone, even the governor, felt so distant and
cut off from the traditional rules of the game in France. Aside
from sheer profit, trade was good for minimizing hostilities
between the North American French and English. Even privateering,
the “legal” hijacking of ships flying the flag of a rival nation,
was discouraged for fear it would curtail the profits of shipping
goods back and forth.

   
But, unfortunately, corruption was to be found at the highest
levels in Louisbourg. Money was skimmed off in various ways to line
the pockets of officials, thus weakening the finances of the
fort.

   
Even before the battles, the town endured
several major crises that went beyond corruption and perennial
drunkenness. In 1732, for example, the
Ruby
arrived
bringing smallpox that killed off a fair chunk of the townspeofple.
That same year also saw a kind of famine, a dramatic shortage of
food that required shipments from New England, at a profit to the
Boston merchants, of course.

Attack on Canso

According to the census of 1737,
Louisbourg was a town of 1,500 civilians and 600 military men. It
included the core group of settlers from Placentia and a colourful
mix of people from France, Quebec, Acadia and the West Indies.
Along with the soldiers, officials and tradespeople were fishermen,
domestics, convicts, slaves and salt smugglers. Nearly 150 ships a
year arrived, making the port at least four times busier than
Quebec. Outside of Louisbourg itself were more than 2,500
colonists, almost all fishermen, since the land nearby was too
rocky and untamed for serious farming.

   
The years between 1713 and 1744 were relatively peaceful ones
between the great rivals of England and France. In 1739 a trade war
had flared in the Caribbean, bringing about a closer alliance
between France and Spain (in opposition to England). When Hapsburg
King Charles VI died suddenly in 1740, there was no male heir to
the throne and this created an imbalance of power in far-away
Europe. Frederick II of Prussia attacked Silesia and the War of the
Austrian Succession began. As you might guess, this would
eventually spill over into the lives of nearly everyone living in
Nova Scotia and on ÎleÜ Royale. France already controlled the St.
Lawrence and Mississippi rivers, which were vital to expanding and
settling the continent. As international tension heated up, the
French minister of marine, Comte de Maurepas, warned Îleo Royale’s
Governor Du Quesnel that Louisbourg should be prepared for the
worst – attacks from New England or England itself. Du Quesnel was
ready and waiting, as were the people of Louisbourg, for attack.
Many felt Louisbourg, because of its design and geography, was
nearly invulnerable. Others were not so sure. n

   
News of out-and-out war reached Du Quesnel in 1744 and the
governor began to work on a strategy that would put the French to
best advantage. Strangely, one of the first elements of that
military strategy involved the church. He wrote to Abbé Jean-Louis
Le Loutre, who was a missionary at Baie Verte. His job would be to
encourage the Mi’kmaq to attack English settlements in Nova Scotia
– a kind of pre-emptive strike policy – and the Abbé was to
accompany such raids as chaplain. It would be okay to kill with God
on your side.

   
Du Quesnel also ordered several companies of soldiers under
Joseph Du Vivier to storm and occupy the fishing village of Canso,
one of the closest major English settlements on the mainland of
Nova Scotia. If Canso could be captured, then the English would
have no easy port from which to mount attacks upon Louisbourg.
Three hundred and fifty soldiers in seventeen fishing vessels set
off under Du Vivier to do their damage. As it turned out, the
French must have had the advantage of better communication with
Europe, because when the ships arrived in Canso, the troops
stationed there had not heard the news that another war had broken
out. They were unprepared and Canso was taken easily. The French
confiscated what was of value to them and torched the tiny town
that has had such a hard-luck existence from the
beginning.

   
English soldiers were taken back to Louisbourg but were
generally considered a nuisance, consuming food supplies which were
already limited and taking up space. They were later set free, or
traded for French prisoners, sand were able to report back to the
English about the structure of the fort from the inside and tell of
the low morale among French troops and the general lack of
discipline.

   
Undoubtedly encouraged by such easy success at Canso, Du
Quesnel sent a second expedition under Du Vivier to recapture old
Port Royal. Du Vivier set off with a mere thirty men and along the
way enlisted a couple of hundtred Mi’kmaq to help out. When they
arrived at the renamed Fort Anne, the Native people were instructed
to “harass” the garrison, while the French sent back for
reinforcements. It doesn’t sound like such a smart military
maneuver and one wonders how it could have been so poorly planned.
Incorrectly anticipating that French ships would soon arrive to
bolster his assault team, Du Vivier jumped the gun and asked the
British soldier in charge, Paul Mascarene, to surrender. Mascarene
refused, not at all certain what he was up against, and perhaps
concluding that Du Vivier was merely posturing. Du Vivier and his
Native allies kept up the harassment, while back in Louisbourg the
ships were detained as they prepared for the assault. Three vessels
finally arrived in October but Du Vivier and his men were nowhere
to be found. Another French officer had appeared on the scene and
ordered the men on elsewhere. Mascarene had toughed out the
ill-prepared attack and called Du Vivier’s bluff. The French ships
simply turned around and headed back to Louisbourg without a
fight.

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

“Attack and Distress the
Enemy”

The English now had good reason to
be nervous about the French presence. The French Navy began
attacking New England merchant ships and everything else afloat.
François Bauchet de Saint-Marin, for example, became notorious for
capturing small unarmed fishing boats. While this sounds like
little cause to celebrate, it did encourage other privateers into
the act and the French government actively supported privateering.
Privateers grew m kore daring and eventually attacked ships not far
off the coast of Massachusetts.

   
By the late summer of that year, 1744, British privateers
were wreaking revenge and reaping their own profits from raids on
the high seas. They pursued French ships right back to the shores
of Cape Breton and this raised tensions on both
sides.

   
Back in Massachusetts, the business community was getting
pretty upset about all the illegal French activity. Governor
William Shirley, it is safe to say, hated the French and wanted
them out of Cape Breton. The French occupation of the old British
fishing community of Canso really angered Shirley and the New
England merchants as well. It was a matter of pride, but it was
also a paramount matter of business. Something had to be done about
Louisbourg. A successful siege of the fort would ensure Americans a
monopoly on North Atlantic fish. A takeover of Île Royale would
also open up the entrance to the St. Lawrence and leave Quebec
vulnerable to an English naval attack. Governor Shirley appealed to
England to “attack and distress the Enemy in their Settlements, and
annoy their Fishery and Commerce.” Attack, distress and annoy would
be the order of the day. These were three words that big
businessmen such as William Vaughan could applaud. Vaughan and John
Bradstreet tried to convince the good government of Massachusetts
to forge ahead with an American attack on Louisbourg, fearing that
the English would be too slow to respond.

   
At first, the government of Massachusetts turned down the
proposal and Vaughan went to the New England fishermen, where he
found more than a little support. These were the men who had lost
the most and now had much to gain by ousting the French from the
lucrative fishing grounds. Support from the fishermen led to the
approval of an attack by a narrow margin at the next meeting of the
legislature. So in March of 1745 an invasion force gathered in
Boston with men from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and
New Hampshire. The leader was William Pepperell, a successful
merchant and popular citizen who happened to have almost no
military expewsrience.