[ganoxg] additions TO MONOGRAPHS 137 



Historic Sites. 



hommes, 10 pierres et 3 canons." This passage by itself would 

 have little meaning were it not explained by another, in a statement 

 of events at Restigouche, written Dec. 4, 1760 by Bezagier, which) 

 reads; — "Les Acadiens armèrent aussi une go'lette, 47 hommes) 

 formaient son équipage. Au commencement d'octobre ils firent à' 

 la vue de Gaspé une bonne prise. Ils furent poursuivis par une fré- 

 gate qui leur fit échouer leur bâtiment. Ils se battirent vigoureuse- 

 ment à terre, et menèrent le tout à Chipagan où ils étaient encore 

 à la capitulation" [of Montreal on Sept. 8, 1760]. These passages 

 seem to settle beyond question the identity of the vessel sunk at St. 

 Simon, — she was not a French war vessel, but a privateer schooner 

 manned by Acadians from Restigouche (where over 1000 Acadians 

 were then in refuge), and it shows that she was run ashore in October, 

 by her own crew to escape a pursuing English frigate. Hence she 

 was not one of the vessels pursued by Byron's fleet in July of thla,t: 

 year, as Cooney thought. The fact that she was manned by Acadians 

 explains another fa,ct which has puzzled me much, namely that al- 

 though there seems to be an agreement that her sailors later settled 

 at Lower Caraquet, practically no names other than those of typical 

 Canadian and Acadian families occur at that settlement. 



But one point remains to be noticed, whether the name St. Simon 

 applied to the vessel, as Cooney and the general local tradition says. 

 or to her captain, as Ferguson's note of 1820 affirms. Unfortunately 

 M. Bazagier mentions neither her name nor that of her captain, al- 

 though he gives both for the other privateers he mentions. In another 

 paper of the same series, however, (a letter by Sieur Bourdon to the 

 Minister, dated Ristigouche Oct. 11, 1760) it is said that Bourdon was 

 to be commandant at Restigouche, along with the sieurs Niverville 

 and Saint Simon. He then states that Niverville has a special post 

 (which another paper shows to have been at Miramichi), but no men- 

 tion is made of the duties of Saint Simon. Another note seems to 

 show that he was at Restigouche Aug. 17, 1760 but he is not mentioned 

 in a list of officers at Restigouche on Oct. 1st of that year. It seems 

 therefore altogether probable that he was placed in command of the 

 privateer manned by Acadians, and that he was the Captain St. Simon 

 who wintered with the men of that privateer at St. Simon, and for 

 whom the place was named. I have been told by Mr. Andrew Wilson 

 of Miscou, an aged resident well versed in all the traditions of tMe 

 part of New Brunswick, that he had heard from the older residents 

 that this captain in the spring (1761) made his way with a few men 

 by land to Halifax while most of the crew settled at Lower Caraquet. 

 It was no doubt some of these, with their descendants who afterwards 

 expanded from Caraquet to St. Simon, and whose descendants now 

 form the population of that place. 



299. Shippegan. In 1760, as shown by a statement of Bazagier mentioned 

 above, there were five French families of 26 persons at Chipagan, and 

 Smethurst in his narrative of 1761 states that Captain McKenzie has 

 removed some inhabitants there leaving about six families, in one of 

 whose huts he lodged. There is nothing positive to show just where 

 this settlement was, but the context of Smethurst's narrative would 



