68 W. F. GANONG ON THE 



Theu the point as to the bad water ; as the Bruce map shows, and as old people in Carle- 

 ton (according to Mr. Hannay) still remember, the low mound of which we speak was 

 cut off from the main shore by a little marsh, through which ran a small creek, which 

 was filled at high tide, making an island of the mound. Under such conditions good 

 water within the fort was an impossibility, and it could be little better than that which 

 flowed outside. This is less probably the case with Portland Point, which is on high 

 ground backed by rocky hills, conditions which should give good water from wells. 



So much for the site of Charuisay's fort. But where was La Tour's ? In the next 

 passage we are told : " It would have been in my opinion better placed behind the island 

 where vessels anchor, and where it would have been higher, and in consequence not 

 commanded by other neighbouring places, and would have had good water as in 

 that which was built by the said late Sieur de la Tour." La Tour's fort, then, stood 

 behind the island where vessels anchor. Is there any ambiguity here ? Can it possibly 

 mean anything other than that it stood on the other side of the island (behind it) from 

 Charnisay's, on the shore opposite which vessels anchor ? This describes Portland Point 

 to perfection ; it describes no other site on the harbour. Vessels cannot lie behind any 

 island out of reach of its guns. It stood on higher ground, Denys said, and not com- 

 manded by neighbouring places.'- Portland Point is much higher than Navy Island and 

 not commanded by it, though it is commanded by Fort Howe Hill. But the conditions 

 of to-day are very different from those of two hundred and more years ago. Then, as we 

 know from records left by the early settlers, the whole present site of the city, and pre- 

 sumably that of the late city of Portland, was covered by a dense growth of trees. Prob- 

 ably through these the small forces of any enemy likely to attack the fort would find it so 

 difiicult to drag cannon and mount them that the heights of Fort Howe were considered 

 to be practically useless. There is certainly no hill or height readily accessible from the 

 water which commands the Portland Point site. The case was different with Navy 

 Island, upon which cannon could be landed under shelter and turned against a fort on 

 the Carleton shore. "We must admit this discrepancy in Denys' narrative ; but in the light 

 of the probability we have mentioned it appears to us to count for very little against the 

 very accurate location implied by his preceding words. It is the only real discrepancy 

 in his narrative. Moreover, there is no other locality about the harbour to which the same 

 objection is not in great measure applicable, and certainly no other to which the full 

 description so well applies. 



That there was an old French fort at Portland Point is well known. It stood on 

 what is to-day a grassy knoll, abrupt and commanding, at the south end and east side of 

 Portland street, at the head of Rankiue's wharf Its ruins were found by the New Eng- 

 land settlers when they reached the harbour in 1762, and upon its site, one of them, 

 James Simonds, built his house, choosing it because it was already cleared.- No other 

 site of an ancient fort is known about the harbour, except the two we have mentioned, 



' The strategic value of both the Fort Dufferin and the Fort Frederick sites has been jioiiited out by Jlr. Dole 

 and ^Ir. Hannay. In this respect Portland Point is a most formidable rival to both the former jilacrs, and con- 

 sidering the short range of the cannon of the time ralher better tlian either of tliem. 



2 Mr. M. H. Perley, in his lecture on the " Early History of New Brunswick," printed in Educational Renew, 

 Vol. IV, No. 9, says: "They [Peabody, Simonds and White] arrived on the 19th of May, 1762 and landed at 

 Portland Point^ where there was a small clearing and the traces of an old French fort." Mr. Perley also mentions 

 that skeletons have been found there. Might they be tliose of the defenders of La Tour's fort, wliom Charnisay so 



