8 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



delendcrs were hani^ed, und M:idame de la Tour appears to have been 

 treated with contuinel}' by Charnisay, and died soon after the fall of the 

 fort. Both history and romance have made her a heroine of those early 

 Acadian days around which much crlamour has been cast in the lapse of 

 two centuries and a iuiif. Charnisay, who is believed to have built the 

 fort on the point of land where Annapolis Royal now stands, had sound 

 views of colonization and might have done much for Acadia had ho not 

 been drowned in the Annapolis River. His widow subsequently married 

 Charles do la Tour in the vain hope of settling contested claims and 

 saving a remnant for his children. After a chequered existence as a 

 French colony, Port Royal was captured, in 1710, by General Nicholson, 

 at the head of an expedition composed of the colonial militia and an 

 Engli-sh fleet. Then it received the name of Annapolis Royal, in honour 

 of Queen Anne. 



The whole poj)ulation of the Acadian peninsula, at the time of its 

 cession by the treaty of Utrecht, did not exceed fifteen hundred souls, 

 and these were nearly all descendants of the relatively few people brought 

 to the country during a period of a century by Poutrincourt, Razilly, 

 and Charnisay. At no time did the French government interest itself in 

 immigration to neglected Acadia. Of the population nearly a thousand 

 persons were settled in the beautiful country which the industry and 

 ingenuity of the Acadian peasants, in the course of many years, reclaimed 

 from the restless tides of the Bay of Fundy at Grand Pré and Minas. 

 The remaining settlements were at Beaubassin, Annapolis, Piziquid 

 (now Windsor), Cobequit (now Truro), and Cape Sable. Some small 

 settlements were also found on the banks of the St. John River and on 

 the eastern bays of the present province of New Brunswick. 



During the eighteenth century, when gentlemen-adventurers and a 

 little band of pioneers were struggling to maintain French interests in 

 Acadia, the King and his ministers only saw a befogged and sterile 

 country, which had neither gold nor silver mines, and would never repay 

 them for the expenses of colonization. In the course of time, they recog- 

 nized the importance of the magnificent country watered by the St. 

 Lawrence, and its tributary lakes and rivers ; but, with an unpardonable 

 want of foresight, they never saw. until it was too late, that the posses- 

 sion of Acadia with its noble Atlantic frontage was indispensable to a 

 power which would grasp a continent and perpetuate the language and 

 institutions of Franco in the western world. Had the French government 

 energetically suj)ported the eflorts of those enterprising and courageous 

 men who attempted to reclaim Acadia for France and civilization, Eng- 

 land could never have made so easy a conquest of the northern half of 

 the continent. 



In the days of the French dominion Acadia was an ill defined region, 

 which may be roughly stated to have included a large portion of the pre- 



