United States or Oman ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
And as Lawrence's forces were quite inadequate to cope with La Corne's, it only remained for Lawrence to return to Halifax with his troops and settlers. Meanwhile Boishebert stood guard for the governor of Quebec at the mouth of the river St John.
Upon the merits of this controversy it is not necessary to enter, and it will be more in keeping with our present subject to refer to the Acadian Expulsion only as it concerns the history of events on the River St. John. The position of the Sieur de Boishebert after the capture of Beausejour and the fort at St. John was a very embarassing one.
The two parties of Colombiere and Boishebert soon joined them, with the agreeable news that each had captured a house; and the united force now proceeded to make a successful attack on two buildings where the English had stored the frames of their blockhouses. Here the assailants captured ten prisoners.
The expectations of Montcalm and de Vaudreuil as to the usefulness of Boishebert's detachment in the defence of Louisbourg were doomed to disappointment, for Boishebert did not arrive at Louisbourg until near the end of the siege and with forces not one-third of the number that Drucour had been led to expect.
When the partisan officer Boishébert was tried for peculation, his counsel met the charge by extolling the manner in which he had fulfilled the arduous duty of encouraging the Acadians, "putting on an air of triumph even in defeat; using threats, caresses, stratagems; painting our victories in vivid colors; hiding the strength and successes of the enemy; promising succors that did not and could not come; inventing plausible reasons why they did not come, and making new promises to set off the failure of the old; persuading a starved people to forget their misery; taking from some to give to others; and doing all this continually in the face of a superior enemy, that this country might be snatched from England and saved to France."
This attack was the work of Boishebert, the Canadian leader, whom we met some time ago at St John. On the capture of that place by Rous in the summer Boishebert had taken to the woods with his followers, and was assisting the settlers of Chepody to gather in the harvest when Frye's raiders appeared.
Fort Boishebert, at Woodman's Point on the Nerepis, was a difficult post to maintain owing to the insufficiency of the troops at de Gaspe's disposal. He complains that the savages had broken in the door of the cellar and he thought it advisable to abandon it altogether. The Marquis de la Jonquiere ordered him to consult with Father Germain on the subject and meanwhile to double the guard.
The sailors on the York, however, held the Frenchmen as hostages for the safe return of their captain. After some parleying Cobb was allowed to return to his vessel, and the Frenchmen were released. Boishebert, however, refused to return the captain's commission. Cobb thereupon boarded the French sloop, seized five of the crew, and sailed away. So the game went on.
Mon. de Boishebert will in like manner be engaged rallying the savages and forming of them a body equally important, and by corresponding with M. Manach, the missionary at Miramichi, will be able, in case of necessity, to unite the savages of that mission to his own in opposing the advance of the enemy.
Northwest of the settlement lay a wide marsh, through which ran a stream called the Missaguash, some two miles beyond which rose a hill called Beauséjour. On and near this hill were stationed the troops and Canadians sent under Boishébert and La Corne to watch the English frontier.
Word Of The Day