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It was no fault of Subercase, the French officer who in 1706 came to Port Royal as governor, that the fortunes of war went against him. In 1707 he beat off two violent attacks of the English; and if sufficient means had been placed at his disposal, he might have retained the colony for France. But the ministry at Versailles, pressed on all sides, had no money to spare for the succour of Acadia.
Subercase was not in a condition to resist so formidable a force; hence we find him writing to the French minister that the garrison is dispirited, and praying for assistance in men and money. The strait to which he was reduced is indicated by the following passage: "I have had means," he says, "by my industry to borrow wherewith to subsist the garrison for these two years.
Boishebert, in his letter to the Count de la Galissonniere, says that one of the best reasons the English had for laying claim to the territory north of the Bay of Fundy was that the commission of Subercase, the last French governor who resided at Annapolis Royal, fixed his jurisdiction as far west as the River Kennebec.
Shortly after this, pirates from the West Indies plundered the place; and in 1691 it again fell into the hands of the French under De Villebon. It was still to undergo two sieges in 1707, when, under Subercase, the besiegers were repulsed; and in 1710 seven ships with English marines bombarded the fort for several days.
No reply having been sent to the summons, Nicholson prepared to land his troops, to which Subercase offered no resistance, as he could not trust the garrison beyond the walls of the fort on account of the discontent induced by the universal conviction of their inability to oppose the English, who mustered to the number of upward of three thousand, exclusive of seamen, to which force the Governor could not oppose more than three hundred fighting men.
Subercase, whose force had been strengthened by troops from the forts, resolved to attack them; and, had he been allowed to do so, he would probably have punished them severely, for most of them were helplessly drunk with brandy taken from the houses of the traders.
The governor, enfeebled by age, was carried in an arm-chair; while Callieres, disabled by gout, was mounted on a horse, brought for the purpose in one of the bateaux. To Subercase fell the hard task of directing the march among the dense columns of the primeval forest, by hill and hollow, over rocks and fallen trees, through swamps, brooks, and gullies, among thickets, brambles, and vines.
An army of about fifteen hundred soldiers was raised in New England, and a British fleet gathered in Boston Harbour. The troops landed and laid siege once more to the much-harassed capital of Acadia. The result was a foregone conclusion. Five days later preliminary proposals were exchanged between Nicholson and Subercase. The starving inhabitants petitioned Subercase to give up.
His conduct in leading the defenders on several critical occasions was characterized by such dash and intrepidity that Governor Subercase in describing the siege wrote to the French minister at Versailles that if it had not been for the presence of the Baron St. Castin he knew not what would have been the result. See Murdoch's Hist. Nova Scotia, vol. I., p. 289.
The failure of the expedition caused great indignation in New England, and the Governor immediately resolved to strengthen the army with a hundred recruits and to order a second attack. Accordingly the expedition again sailed for Port Royal, when Subercase was in a far more formidable position than formerly.
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