288 J. G. BOUEINOT 



a governor of Three Rivers, black-robed priests, officers and soldiers, peasants and their 

 wives, brave men and fair women, representatives of many families in New and Old France 

 perished, and " all Canada was placed in mourning and lost more in one day than she had 

 lost by twenty years of war." ' Here Admiral Holbourne's fleet, surprised by one of those 

 furioiis gales that often visit the coast, expected every instant to be tossed on the rocks 

 over which the sea rushed with great billows of foam, and only escaped at last with the 

 masts and rigging torn away by the fury of the wind, and the loss of one gallant ship 

 that was carried among the rocks of St. Esprit, on the southern coast of the island. The 

 shores of Cape Breton from Cape North to the most southern point on the Atlantic, could 

 tell many a sad story of disaster to the numerous vessels that have been hurled on it& 

 reefs from the earliest times since the gulf became a highway of commerce. Even the loss 

 of the Chameau has bad a parallel in that of the Auguste, wrecked on her way to Europe 

 in the autumn of 1161 on some unknown part of the precipitous northeastern coast, with 

 a number of Canadian families, and many soldiers of the Beam and Royal Rousillon regi- 

 ments, who had escaped the dangers of war that they might meet an inglorious death 

 amid the roar of the breakers and the tempest on the desolate shores of the island which, 

 like the Canada they had left, had passed away from France for ever.- 



As we stand on the ruined ramparts, let us for a moment forget the prosaic scene 

 that forces itself upon us on every side in thes3 days of the old port's departed greatness, 

 and recall the history of the past with its enterprising adventurers and discoverers, its 

 bold soldiers and famous sailors, its squadrons of stately ships and its regiments drawn 

 from France, England and the thirteen colonies, then developing into national life and acti- 

 vity. Cape Breton in these times is merely a fine island to the tourist who travels through 

 its picturesque lakes, and surveys its noble ports and bays only in the light of the prosaic 

 present. Its geological features and its rich coal deposits attract the scientist. Others 

 speculate with the eye and brain of the capitalist on the opportunities that its mineral 

 and other resources, and its admirable position at the entrance of the Gulf of Saint-Law- 

 rence, offer to enterprise and energy. Some still look forward with reason to the time 

 when Sydney and Louisbourg will become great ports of the world's commerce, and more 

 than realize the conceptions of the astute Raudots nearly two centuries ago. But these 

 are not the only thoughts that will press upon the mind at times when we travel over 

 the historic ground that lies between the old site of Port Toulouse and the ruins of 

 Louisbourg. We can see in memory the sails of the Basque and Breton fishermen hovering 

 centuries ago off the bays of the island which had no name and hardly a place then in the 

 rude maps of the world. We can see Spaniard and Portuguese venturing into its 

 unknown rivers and harbours, and giving them names which were so many recollections 

 of their homes across the sea. At times when the vessels of many nations anchor in 

 its safe havens we hear a curious medley of tongues ; the Saxon words of Kent and 

 Devon, the curious dialects of the Bay of Biscay, the sonorous Spanish and the softer 

 Portuguese, the old Celtic language of Bretagne so closely allied to that of the old Britons 

 across the English Channel. The years pass by, and the island still remains a solitude 

 save where the wandering Micmac raises his birch lodge and lights his fire on the shores 



' Charlevoix, 'Journal Historique,' Ed. i, p. C9. A •'flute " is a long vessel with flat ribs, and used generally 

 as a transport. 



'^ See App. XVI to this work. 



