286 J. G. BOUEINOT 



reckoning was inaccurately copied in the printing, when it is clear on the face of the 

 record that all the reckonings were wrong. The master of the Delight, iu the relation 

 which he has left behind, tells us that Sir Humphrey Gilbert and all the captains " fell to 

 controversie " of the coiirse, when within twenty leagues of the Isle of Sable. Sir 

 Humphrey contended that the reckoning kept by the master of the Amiral was untrue. 

 If the vessels had been off Cape Breton — the best known cape in those waters — there 

 could have been no difficulty as to the course. It is equally clear that they could never 

 have entered so safe a port as Louisbourg, for there is no mention of a harbour, but only 

 of "flats and dangers," where the whole fleet was nearly lost. All the details of the 

 shipwreck, as they have come down to us, show clearly that it must have been on 

 some unknown shore that the disaster happened. On an August day, when the rain and 

 mist prevented them seeing a cable length before them, they saw what at first they 

 thought were " white cliffs," bu.t was evidently the sea breaking on the rocks, though they 

 could not descry any land. Presently the " Amiral struck the ground, and had soon her 

 stern and hinder parts beaten in pieces, and thereupon the two other A'^essels made off 

 seaward." "We are told that there was not enough water upon the sand for the other ves- 

 sels, much less for the largest, the Amiral, that drew fourteen feet. A number of the crew 

 of the Delight succeeded in saving themselves in a pinnace of the vessel, but the captain 

 and many others were drowned. " And when the sixteen were in the boate," continues 

 the eye-witness of the wreck, Clarke, the master, " some had small remembrance, and 

 some had none, for they did not make account to live, but to prolong their lives as long 

 as it pleased God, and looked every moment of an hour when the sea would eat them up, 

 and the boat being so little and so many men iu her." Not a word is said of the fleet 

 having seen land or entered a harbour — no such inference can be drawn from any of the 

 narratives before us. It is almost certain had they entered a port like Loiiisbourg they 

 would have given us an account of its natural characteristics and of the incidents of their 

 visit, just as they did iu the case of the ports of Newfoundland, and in all probability Sir 

 Humphrey Gilbert would have claimed the sovereignty of his queen over the island by 

 some formal act. One knowing Louisbourg must feel that had the voyagers once reached 

 that port no such story of disaster would have been told. The Delight might have 

 been wrecked on the rocks that bar the entrance of the port, but then not an atom of her, 

 certainly not a piece of ordnance, would have been left to tell the tale. The place where 

 the old gun was found is on the western shore and within the peaceful haven, and how- 

 ever the storm might have raged outside, the fleet could haA^e anchored safely and been 

 hardly tossed by the relatively slight commotion that i?re vails in limes of the most furious 

 winds. The whole story of the wreck, and of the escape of the pinnace, speaks of shoals 

 and rocks, and not of one of the safest and calmest harbours in American waters. If tlie 

 fleet had found itself once moored in this fine port, we should assuredly have had a very 

 différent story from the adventurers who have left the records of that disastrous voyage 

 behind them. It is idle to connect the finding of an old cannon in the mud of the Louis- 

 bourg shore with the ambiguous stories of sailors out of their reckoning, and unable to 

 see any land, but only the sea breaking on shores and rocks. In olden times vessels of 

 many nations sought refuge in Louisbourg harbour, and it was not unusual for many of 

 the large class to be armed that they might defend themselves against the savages of " the 



