SITE OF FOET LA TOUI!. 65 



which he has used, some words of primary importance which are fatal to his view have 

 been omitted. This misreading of passages in Denys' work, which are in such plain 

 French that it seems utterly impossible that anyone could ever misunderstand them, is 

 the strangest fact in all of our local literature. As a matter of fact, as the reader can see 

 for himself below, Denys, after speaking of what Mr. Hannay must admit to be Partridge 

 Island, goes on to add : " On the same side as the island there are great marshes or flats." 

 These words, " on the same side as the island," are totally omitted from Mr. Hannay's 

 translation as given in his paper, and thus is destroyed the sense of a passage which in. 

 its truth and entirety is quite fatal to the theory he seeks to establish. But this matter 

 will come up again in a moment. 



(2.) A bare statement of this sort can have very little weight when not backed by 

 reliable evidence of some sort. We have no reason for believing that M. Massé de St. 

 Maurice, writing in 1*760, had any reliable information as to the site of Fort La Tour. 

 But, on the other hand, maps of 1*755 (presently to be referred to) are known, which place 

 Fort La Tour on the west side, and it was very probably from one of these that he had his 

 information. 



(3.) Mr. Hannay's whole reasoning is based, as he himself tells us, upon the supi)o- 

 sitiou that Fort La Tour stood on the Fort Frederick site. Taking this for granted at the 

 start, he proceeds to show that all we know of the subsequent history of both forts is 

 consistent with his assumption, and hence a strong degree of probability is attached to 

 the latter. But aside from the fact that Mr. Hannay by no means succeeds in proving all 

 of his points in the line of the argviment, owing to our very scanty knowledge of their 

 subsequent history,' there is the additional difficulty that if the assumption to start with 

 be just the reverse, i.e., that Fort La Tour w^as at Portland Point, everything is just as con- 

 sistent with the assumption as in the former case. 



The entire absence of cartographical evidence is a serious drawback to Mr. Hannay's 

 argument. The only maps he mentions, two in number, he admits to be against his 

 view. Li a question of exact geography, the evidence of maps cannot be neglected. 



' For instance, to take but a single point, Mr. Hannay argues from passages in Cliiircli's history of his eastern 

 expedition tliat Yillebon's fort, built in 1690, was on tlie east side. But this is directly opposed by a statement of 

 Brouillon, who was personally on the ground in 1701. His description of the fort (in " Collection des Manuscrits," 

 Quebec, 1SS4, Vol. II, p. 390) calls the land "low, wet and unliealthy, which makes both garrison and stores 

 suffer," w^hich applies perfectly to the Old Fort Point site, but not to Portland Point. Then he says : " The water 

 is very bad and very scarce" — almost the identical words of Denys, who applied them to Charnisay's Fort at Car- 

 leton (see below p. G7) ; and then he adds : " The place is very contracted, and all tliat M. Villebon has been able 

 to do has been to arrange what little earth there is in bastions very little elevated and with a slope very easj' to 

 surmount." -'Vnd again (Murdoch, I, p. 249), he calls it " extremely small, and commanded on one side by an 

 island, at the distance of a pistol shot, and on the other by a height which commanded it entirely, at the distance 

 of only a hundred and odd fathoms, with tlie disadvantge of having no water to drink without going to seek it 

 beyond the torrent of the River St. John." Brouillon thus clearly indicates that Yillebon's Fort was in Carleton, 

 and not on the east side, as Jlr. Hannay's chain of reasoning requires. 



An tinspajiir ispassmg through the pnss, I hare received from Paris a copy of a map in the French Archives, entitled 

 " Plan du Fori de la Riviire de St. Jean, par le Sr. de Villieu, 20 S&r 1700." This is Villebon's fort, and shows it sur- 

 rounded by water on the west, north and mst sides, and connected with the land to the south by a marshy neck. This settles 

 finally the situation of Villebon's fort, as Mr. Hannay, who has seen the map, admits. It v:as in Carleton at " Old Fort." 

 Hence Mr. Hannay's chain of reasoning must fall to the ground. 



Just to the south-west on this map i.s marked a hill, with the inscription, " hauteur d'où le fori peut estre 

 incommodé." This is of course the height mentioned by Brouillon, and is the very abrupt hill, higher than " Old 

 Fort," on Water street between JIarket and Ludlow, in Carleton. 



Sec. 11, 1891. 9. 



