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J. G. BOURINOT 



the prominent position it now occupies at Harvard. Here we have undoubtedly clear 

 evidence of the extreme liberality of these days that would make old father Moody lift his 

 voice in stern rebuke of the degeneration of his countrymen, were he permitted by a 

 higher power, to return to the land where he once denounced the Eoman Catholic religion 

 with so much bitterness of tongue. But now-a-days in the very state where Governor 

 Endicott cut the red cross from the English flag, the same symbol not only invites the 

 people to numerous churches but seems to offer a benison to the youth of New England 

 who pass beneath the portals of Harvard's spacious library.^ 



For many years after the destruction of the famous fortificatious, and before the resist- 

 less action of the ocean had buried deep beneath the sand the remains of the vessels sunk 

 by Chevalier Drucour at the entrance of the port during the second siege, the fishermen of 

 Louisbourg often alleged they could see the cannon of the ships lying among the rocks 

 and seaweed as their little craft lay becalmed when the wind went down and the waters 

 presented an unruffled surface which revealed their secrets many fathoms below. But 

 such stories now are no longer heard in the old port, and the most imaginative eye can- 



not penetrate the depths of the waters where gallant ships were sacrificed in a vain hope 

 to prevent the entrance of the great English fleet that blockaded the port. Cannon balls 

 and bomb-shells are at times tossed up by the sea from the sands and rocks where they 

 have been embedded for years, but it is rarely now that cannon are found. Nearly fifty 

 years ago there was one interesting " treasure trove" in the form of an old gun, which is 

 clearly a memorial of several centuries ago. The hooped cannon," of which I give a sketch 

 on this page, was dug up in the mud of the western shore of the harbour, nearly half a 

 mile to the west of the ruins of the Grand Battery.^ A distinguished Nova Scotian archa?- 



' In a letter to the author, Dr. Justin Winsor, the librarian of Harvard, says: "The story is that tho iron cross 

 above the door of our library was brought back to Massachu.setls after the siege of Louisbourg (17-15) by the returned 

 troops. When I found it in 1877 in the cellar of the library, it had a label on it to that eflbct. I then placed it 

 above the door, and had it gilded. It is supposed to have been on the Catholic chapel in Louisbourg [in the citadel 

 or hospital church ?]. I say this mucli and give a cut of it in vol. ii. of ' Mem. Hist, of Boston ' " (frontispiece). 



- See supra, sec. VI, for an account of a similar gun found at St. Peter's, C.B. 



^ The exact place where this gun was found can be seen by looking at the plan of the city and harbour of 

 Louisbourg at end of this work. It was on the shore immediately in front of the little pond which is seen marked 

 midway between the grand battery and the barachois, where Halos's Regiment is marked. 



