76 J. G. BOURINOT ON 
* 
The history of Fort LaTour, under its English masters, affords us no such interesting 
episodes as characterized its career during its occupation by its founder and his heroic 
wife. When, in 1670, the posts in Acadia were restored to the French, Fort LaTour 
appears to have been in a ruinous state, and was deserted for some time. For many years, 
till the close of the seventeenth century, it was occupied by a small garrison, but in the 
summer of 1701 one of the French governors ordered it to be razed to the ground. At that 
date its history as Fort LaTour may be said to end. 
In 1758 Col. Moncton was sent by the British governor at Bort Royal to take formal 
possession of the River St. John. The work was very soon accomplished, and the English 
flag now waved triumphantly over the whole river territory from the Canadian boundary 
to the sea. Then the old fort began to wear a new aspect, for the ruined ramparts were 
renewed, and cannon again mounted on its walls; but, while it obtained in this way a 
longer lease of existence, it became, not Fort Latour as of’ old, but Fort Frederick, in 
honour of a prince of the nation to which it now belonged. Thenceforth its history is 
monotonous, and we need not trace its career up to the time when it fell to pieces, or was 
swallowed up by the encroaching tides of the Bay of Fundy. It was possible—at least it 
Was very recently—to distinguish some of the old embankments of the fort, notwithstand- 
ing the fact that it is now to some extent covered by houses and gardens. One of the 
most enterprising cities of the Dominion has sprung up around it, according as it has 
decayed and disappeared. Great ships, freighted with the merchandise of every land, 
come to anchor within a few yards of the spot where the fleur-de-lis once floated in the 
breeze, and the wealth of a fine province comes down the River St. John and passes the 
graves of the old pioneers who once saw in Fort LaTour one of the means by which was 
to be founded an empire under the rule of France. The old and more pretentious settle- 
ment of Port Royal is only a smalltown; Louisburg is a mere sheep pasture; but around 
Fort LaTour has sprung up a wealthy city, to illustrate the wisdom of the old adventurers 
who chose it as a site of a settlement which was, under favourable auspices, to grow in the 
course of time into a large and flourishing community. The old pioneers who once owned 
the favoured country watered by the noble St. John River are now forgotten by the busy, 
enterprising people who are labouring in the walks of commerce above French graves. 
It is left for the historical student to remember 

“We have no title-deeds to house or lands, 
Owners and occupants of earlier dates, 
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands 
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.” 
Now let my readers accompany me to that narrow neck of land which connects New 
Brunswick with Nova Scotia and is known as the Isthmus of Chignecto. When Port Royal 
and LaTour were first erected, the settlements of France and England were very insigni- 
ficant, but now we come to a time when Quebec and Montreal were towns of considerable 
importance, and the English colonies were rapidly increasing in population and wealth. 
In the middle of the last century the French had a fort at the mouth of the Missisquash : 
one of the streams which empty iito Cumberland Basin. Those were times when there 
were many apprehensions entertained by the British authorities in Port Royal and Halifax 
as to the good faith of the large settlement of Acadian French which had in the course of 
a hundred and fifty years established themselves in the most fertile section of the province, 
ss til 
