SITE OF FOET LA TOUE. 69 



and had there beeu such, it could hardly have escaped notice and mention by the early 

 settlers. In the face of all this, does there seem room for any doubt that Fort La Tour was 

 the fort that stood on Portland Point ? 



(2 ) There are several maps of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth cen- 

 turies which mark Fort La Tour ou the east side of the harbour ; the earliest I have been 

 able to find which places it on the west side bears date of 1755, and even in the best 

 instance of the latter a second and corrected edition restores it to the east side. So 

 marked is this feature that the statement is not too i^ositive that all known maps made 

 wi/liin a hundred years after its deslri/clion, most of them made by map-makers ivho had good direct 

 evidence as to its location, if they mark Fort La Tour at all, place it upon the east side of the harbour. 



It is true that evidence of this kind must be used with caution, for map-makers often 

 copied directly one from another, and if the first were wrong a long following series 

 might be also misled. This important source of error can be eliminated, however, if it 

 can be proven that a number of maps shownng a certain feature w^ere made independently 

 of one another, and especially if it can be shown that some of them were made from actual 

 surveys. In the following notes on the early maps bearing on our subject we have 

 selected only those which appear to be of this nature, neglecting all of those which were 

 obviously copied one from another.' 



Map No. 1. — The first map we offer in evidence is entitled : — 



Le Canada, faict par le Sr. de Champlain oii sont La Nouvelle France, La Nouvelle Angle- 

 terre [etc.], suivant les mémoires de P. DuVal, Géographe du Roy, Paris, 1677. It is not neces- 

 sary to offer a tracing of this map. On the east side of the river at its mouth there is 

 shown a square fort with no name, but the number 14 attached. In the copy I have 

 examined, through the kind courtesy of Professor E. N. Horsford, of Cambridge, the key 

 explaining the numbers is missing, but the map has so much in common with later ones 

 which mark this fort, Fort La Tour, that we can hardly doubt that such is the name 

 attached to this figure in the key." lu any event, it is important to notice that the only 



cruelly killed? Mr. J. W. Lawrence (Foolprinls, p. 4) says : " Mr. Simoiids erected his dwelling on the ruins of an 

 old Trench fort, Portland Point." And the map in the same work shows the position of the house. 



It is a very interesting fact that the site of the fort is to-day unencurahered by buildings. Its situation is 

 most commanding, afl'ording a most beautiful view of the harbor, Carleton and the river, and as one stands upon 

 it he cannot help thinking how superior it is for the site of a fort to the " Old Fort" site in Carleton. There is 

 deep water immediately in front of it, where in old times vefsels used to bo unloaded. It has, moreover, a most 

 excellent landing place at all tides, while the " Old Fort " site has not. But little is known locally about the place. 

 Mr. John McAllister of St. John has told me that cannon balls have been found on the site, and he writes me that, 

 ten years ago, as a drain was being dug around the base of Jhe hill, " the workmen, when about five feet from the 

 surface, drew my attention to a pavement of stone very neatly and firmly made, about five feet below the surface, 

 evidently showing that some careful work had long ago been done there-" This point is interesting. Careful 

 paving was likely to have been done in connection with La Tour's powerful fort, not with Charnisay's temporary 

 and weaker one. A workman told me that excavations showed that the hill is partly artificial, as clay had been 

 brought there to build it up. It is well known that the original 8imonds house stood upon it. 



' There is mentioned in Jlarcel's "Cartograi>hie de la Nouvelle France" a map of 1607, on which there had 

 been subsequently marked the site of the settlements, including I,a Tour's in Acadia. In applying to M. JIarcel 

 in Paris I find that the map has now passed out of his possession ; it might be of very great value in this connec- 

 tion. Although I have made every effort, with M. Marcel's assistance, to trace it, I have so far not been successful. 



- This map is reproduced in Prof. Horsford's superbly illustrated "defences of Norunibega," fifth map facing 

 page 70. I have found, since the above was printed, that the >'o. 14 does not apply to the fort but to the river. 

 This does not, however, weaken the force of the argument — the only fort marked is on the east side of the river. 



