United States or Gabon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The sole result, of this bit of strategy seems to have been the capture of one poor Frenchman from whom the English learned that the Indians had gone, some to Passamaquoddy and others with Boishebert to Cocagne, also that there was "a French officer and about 20 men twenty-three miles up the River at a place called St. Anns."
He anchored outside the harbor and sent his boats to reconnoitre. They found no French ships and on their appearance Boishebert, the officer in command of the fort, burst his cannon, blew up his magazine, burned everything he could and marched off.
Next day the vessels succeeded in crossing Grand Bay and anchored off "Pointe aux Tourtres," about two leagues above the mouth of the Nerepis. On their way they observed the remains of the fort built by Boishebert at Woodman's Point. This place is known as Salmon Point, but in the plan is given as Pidgeon's Point.
After burning two hundred and fifty-three buildings he had reimbarked, leaving fifty men on shore at a place called Peticodiac to give a finishing stroke to the work by burning the "Mass House," or church. While thus engaged, they were set upon by three hundred Indians and Acadians, led by the partisan officer Boishébert. More than half their number were killed, wounded, or taken.
The next morning the Indians invited Captain Rous ashore and gave him the strongest assurances of their desire to make peace with the English, saying that they had refused to assist the French. A few weeks after Boishebert had been thus obliged to abandon Fort Menagouche there occurred the tragic event known as the "Acadian Expulsion."
John the conduct of the inhabitants had altered for the worse; the French had now 100 families settled on the river, had greatly strengthened the old fort at its mouth with guns and men, and had built a new one. Fort Boishebert, some miles up the river armed with twenty-four guns and garrisoned by 200 regulars.
Boishebert was endeavoring at this time, with the approval of the Marquis de Vaudreuil, to draw as many of the Acadians as possible to the River St. John and to induce them to oppose any advance on the part of the English. The French commander, however, soon found his position an exceedingly difficult one. After sending many families to Quebec and to the Island of St.
He also recommended that the fort at the mouth of the river, lately abandoned by Boishebert, should be rebuilt and a garrison of 50 men placed there. During the years that followed the expulsion of the Acadians occasional parties of the exiles, returning from the south, arrived at the River St. John, where they waited to see what the course of events might be. Their condition was truly pitiable.
Boishebert left his sick at Miramichi, and having sent sixty prisoners, whom he had taken on various occasions, to Quebec, he then took part in an expedition against Fort George, on the coast of Maine, where he gained more honor than at the seige of Louisbourg. He returned to Quebec in November, and about the same time there was an exodus from the River St.
The Marquis adds that even if France failed to establish her claim to the territory north of the Bay of Fundy and should be forced to abandon it he hoped, by the aid of Boishebert and the missionaries, to withdraw the Acadians and their Indian allies to Canada. "It would be vexatious," adds the Marquis, "if they should pass to the English."
Word Of The Day