26 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



for the present Hamilton river. It was a grant for ten years only and, 

 in 1T04, de Courtemanche set out to examine it. The details of his 

 voyage are in his report, still extant in the archives of the ]\Iarine at 

 Paris. The coast is described, harbour by harbour, from the Kegashka 

 eastwards. He visited the very spot where the flourishing city of Brest 

 is said to have been. The bay was capacious and the clustered islands 

 abounded with game. On the shore of the bay was an establishment 

 of Frenchmen and a fort, behind which there were hills and, a half a 

 league distant, was the Esquimaux river. The place is identified beyond 

 dispute; it is what is now known as Old Fort bay, the westernmost arm 

 of Esquimaux bay. Courtemanche does not mention Brest — appar- 

 ently does not know of such a place. Nor does his narrative leave any 

 impression of many people li\dng there. He mentions none ; but dwells 

 on the natural advantages of the situation, the capacity of the harbour 

 and the abundance of game. He passed on eight leagues further to 

 what he called la Baye des Espagnols, now Bradore bay, and there he 

 built a post he called Fort Ponchartrain. This latter bay then began 

 to be called Phelypeaux bay — both names from Louis and Jerome 

 Phelypeaux, Counts de Ponchartrain, who administered Colonial affairs 

 in succession in France from 1690 to 1715. 



Fort Ponchartrain remained in the possession of the family down 

 to the time of the conquest. Courtemanche acted as a commandant 

 and kept order along the coast, which then began to be divided into 

 grants for sedentary seal fisheries. He died about 1716 and the grant 

 was renewed to Madame de Courtemanche, her son and her three daugh- 

 ters. Her son (by her first marriage), Martel de Brouage, succeeded 

 his step-father as magistrate on the coast. Much more could be added 

 concerning this interesting family, but it would not bear upon the sub- 

 ject of this paper. We now know from Cartier in 1534 where Brest 

 was and from Courtemanche we know that the oldest French post was 

 in the same place — that is the present old Fort Bay. 



The name Brest, as we have seen, faded off the coast at a very 

 early date — in fact it never was established. It was a harbour and 

 a fishing post at first abandoned in winter, like all the posts on the 

 Newfoundland coast. When or by whom a, permanent post was estab- 

 lished does not appear, but about the end of the seventeenth century the 

 Esquimaux began a movement to the south and extended their migration 

 until repulsed, as far as the Mingan islands. They annoyed the fisher- 

 men by destroying their stages and boats during the winter, so that 

 a few men were left at places of much resort and they would naturally 

 erect some sort of a fort or block-house. In that way the place came 

 to be called "Adieux Fort." On d'Anville's map, 1716, it is marked 



