ON CiAPE BRETON. 195 



the island.' On the same river there was also a settlement of Germans, probably from 

 Alsace-Lorraine." 



The fortifications enclosed an area of over one hundred acres, and had a circumference 

 of about two and one-half miles. They were planned on the best system as laid down by 

 Vauban and other great masters of engineering skill, and were intended to be, as indeed 

 they were, despite their faulty construction, the most complete example of a strongly for- 

 tified city in America. Writers have constantly referred to Louisbourg as " the American 

 Dunkirk," and it is no exaggeration to say that its fortifications can be best compared to 

 that powerful fortress which was for so many years a menace to England on the French 

 coast. The strongest portion of the fortifications was necessarily constructed on the land 

 side, stretching for two-thirds of a mile from the Dauphin or west gate at the northwest- 

 erly angle of the walls or the southern shore of the harbour to within a short distance of 

 the rocky shore at Black Point, and facing the country which stretches to Gabarus Bay, — 

 necessarily the weak side since any attack by land mu.st come from that direction. If we 

 survey the general features of the fortifications, as set forth in the plans and descriptions 

 which have come down to us, we find that the glacis was perfect on the southwest, or 

 land front, as far as the shore extremity of the walls, and a ditch at least eighty feet in 

 breadth extended throughout this distance. An escarpment rose above this ditch, but it 

 was necessary to cross a bridge over a little stream before entering the west or Dauphin 

 gate, which was protected by the Dauphin bastion and a circular battery mounting six- 

 teen 24-pouuders. Following the walls we come next to the King's bastion and citadel, 

 which was protected by the glacis, a covered way, and a moat connected with the town 

 by a drawbridge. The citadel was a long, oblong building of stone, and contained apart- 

 ments for the governor, a barracks and a chapel. In the bastion there were also an arsenal 

 and a magazine, a place d'armes and a parade. Passing on for about five hundred feet, 

 we come to the Queen's bastion, and midway between it and the Princess's bastion was 

 the Queen's gate, which connected the town with the place d'armes at that point by a 

 bridge over the ditch. The Princess's bastion formed the defence of the extreme south- 

 western point of the wall, facing the rocky shore. From this point, for a distance of about 

 two hundred yards, the defences consisted only of a rampart for small arras and a palisade, 

 the rocky shore and shallow water being here well covered by the fire of the bastions. In 



' James Gibson, who belonged to Brigadier-General AValdo's regiment in 1745, gives an account in his journal 

 (see App. X to this work) of two fine farms on a neck of land in the wost-northwest part of the island, about 

 twenty-five miles from the Grand Biitterj'. " First we came to a very handsome house, with two large barns, two 

 large gardens and fine fields of corn. * * * Tlieother was a fine stone edifice, six rooms on a floor and well fur- 

 nished. There was a fine walk before it, and two barns contiguous to it, with fine gardens and fields of wheat. 

 In one of these barns were fifteen loads of hay, and room sufficient for sixty horses and cattle." As Gibson 

 speaks of a house " situated at tlie mouth of a large salmon fishery," Brown {■'Hist, of C. B.," p. 222))) is probably 

 right in his conjecture that the farms were situated near the confiuence of tlio Mira and Salmon rivers — a fertile 

 and beautiful country. 



- Writing to the French minister in 1753, M, Prévost, the intendant, has the following remarks on the subject : 

 " I had the honour of announcing the location of the German village on the border of the Grand Lake of Jlira. It 

 is there Count Raymond told me he wished to place it, but I have since then indirectly heard that the settlement 

 had been changed to the grand Mira road, one league from the lake and at the foot of the Devil's ^Mountain. I 

 hoiw I am wrong in lliis particular, but it is in the knowledge of everybody that the poorest land for the purpose 

 has been chosen, and the grant of one arpont [nearly two Knglish acres] as frontage to each lot is far too narrow." 

 See " Correspondance Générale, Archives Coloniales de la Marine" (Paris), vol. xxxiii, c. 11, fol. 100. 



