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Updated: May 10, 2025
"Ay! thus we move, helpless, lost, and beyond the aid of man, convoyed by a fleet of fantasies into a sailless sea, and to an unknown fate. Well I know that by to-morrow, myriads of eyes will watch for signs of our presence from Canseau to Gaspé, and on both shores of St. Jean; but they will look in vain.
The troops of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, amounting to rather more than four thousand men, assembled at Canseau about the middle of April; soon after which, to the great joy of the colonial troops, admiral Warren arrived, with a considerable part of his fleet. The army then embarked for Chapeau-rouge bay, and the fleet cruised off Louisbourg.
After an absence of six weeks they reappeared with howls of victory, and their exploits were commemorated in French verse by the muse of the indefatigable Lescarbot. With a heavy heart the advocate bade farewell to the dwellings, the cornfields, the gardens, and all the dawning prosperity of Port Royal, and sailed for Canseau in a small vessel on the thirtieth of July.
The fishing-station of Canseau was a tempting prize, being a near and an inconvenient neighbor, at the southern end of the Strait of Canseau, which separates the Acadian peninsula from the island of Cape Breton, or Isle Royale, of which Louisbourg was the place of strength.
A body of French, from Cape Breton, surprised the little English garrison of Canseau, destroyed the fort and fishery, and removed eighty men, as prisoners of war, to Louisburg the strongest fortress, next to Quebec, in French America. These men were afterwards sent to Boston, on parole, and, while there, communicated to Governor Shirley the state of the fortress in which they had been confined.
This state of things was interrupted by a sudden incursion of the French into Nova Scotia. The governor of Cape Breton having received information that France and Great Britain had become principals in the war, took possession of de Canseau with a small military and naval force, and made the garrison, and inhabitants prisoners of war.
During the three years Champlain remained in Acadia he made explorations and surveys of the southern coasts of Nova Scotia from Canseau to Port Royal, of the shores of the Bay of Fundy, and of the coast of New England from the St. Croix to Vineyard Sound.
A boat sent by Pountrincourt, more than a week before, to explore the coasts, had met them near Cape Sable, and they joyfully returned to Port Royal. Pontgrave, however, soon sailed for France in the "Jonas," hoping on his way to seize certain contraband fur-traders, reported to be at Canseau and Cape Breton.
Along with the crumbling old fort and miserably disciplined garrison at Annapolis, besides six or seven small detached posts to watch the Indians and Acadians, it comprised the whole British force on the peninsula; for Canseau had been destroyed by the French.
Whatever might otherwise have been the disposition of the "Bastonnais," or New England people, the attacks on Canseau and Annapolis alarmed and exasperated them, and engendered in some heated brains a project of wild audacity.
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