THE CHARM OF CAPE BRETOX ISLAND 



39 



to the accompaniment of bell-ringing and 

 bonfires and tubs of punch. 



The descendants of these enthusiastic 

 citizens, the Society of Colonial Wars, 

 have erected a granite shaft to the heroic 

 dead of this enterprise, and it stands on 

 the spot where Pepperell, in the presence 

 of the assembled troops, received from 

 the military governor the keys of this 

 "most splendid city of La Nouvelle 

 France." 



All England celebrated the victory : 

 there were illuminations and the firing 

 of salutes, and the captured colors of the 

 fortress were deposited with much pomp 

 in St. Paul's Cathedral. 



With the closing of this refuge of At- 

 lantic privateers, "marine insurance on 

 Anglo-American vessels fell at once from 

 30 to 12 per cent" ! 



GALLANTRIES IX TIME OF WAR 



Subsequently the island was restored 

 to France — as much a cause for irrita- 

 tion to Xew England, and perhaps more 

 justly so, than that which precipitated a 

 tea-party better known. And again the 

 fortunes of war and the final supremacy 

 of Anglo-Saxon arms in the Xew W orld 

 made it permanently a British possession. 



The giant fortress of Louisburg was 

 demolished in favor of the newly forti- 

 fied base at Halifax — a military neces- 

 sity that is deplored by the visitor of 

 today. 



And yet, in all its desolation, one 

 thrills to the glory of its past. Here are 

 the remains of the Dauphin's gate ; yon- 

 der can be traced the bomb-proof case- 

 ments of the King's Bastion, and on one 

 of these grassy mounds stood the citadel, 

 where fair ladies and gallant gentlemen 

 of France graced the grand ball on that 

 fateful eve of Pepperell's arrival in 

 Gabarus Bay. 



Perhaps behind this very rampart the 

 lovely Madame Drucour encouraged the 

 defenders in the second siege by serving 

 their guns with her own hands — the fair 

 enemy who so won the admiration of 

 the British admiral that he sent her a 

 special message complimenting her upon 

 her bravery. It is a pretty story and 

 we are glad that Madame accepted the 

 Admiral's compliments and the West 



Indian pineapples which accompanied 

 them, and graciously returned him a 

 basket of French wines for his wounded. 



THE ADVEXT OF SCOTTISH SETTLERS 



eluding 



For some years after the peace con- 

 the Seven Years' War, which 

 confirmed England's ownership of Cape 

 Breton, the policy of her government in 

 reserving the island for naval purposes 

 retarded its colonization. X'ot until 

 1784, when the island became tempo- 

 rarily a separate colony, with its own 

 governor, were grants of land to settlers 

 permitted. 



Thus Cape Breton received fewer of 

 the United Empire Loyalists, who main- 

 tained their allegiance to the British 

 Crown at the expense of their lands and 

 homes in the thirteen American col- 

 onies, than did the adjacent provinces. 

 and had room for a greater number of 

 the hardy Scottish settlers who came in 

 the late years of the eighteenth and the 

 opening of the nineteenth century. 



Many of these came out to join rela- 

 tives and friends among the Highland 

 soldiers who had fought under Wolfe at 

 the second siege of Louisburg and who 

 had remained in the country upon the 

 disbanding of their regiments, while 

 others came in the stream of emigration 

 which had its source in the breaking up 

 of the clan system and the agrarian 

 troubles in the Scottish Highlands after 

 the suppression of "the '45" and the dis- 

 aster of Culloden Moor. 



In this way the island became '"as 

 Gaelic as the most Gaelic part of Scot- 

 land." Though there are considerable 

 French Acadian settlements, a more or 

 less cosmopolitan population in the vicin- 

 ity of the mining districts, and many 

 descendants of the fine old L nited Em- 

 pire Loyalist stock, the F. F. V.'s of the 

 provinces. Cape Breton is still predomi- 

 nantly Highland Scottish in its popula- 

 tion. 



Here can be heard the old Celtic 

 tongue that hurled defiance at Cassar 

 from the shores of Britain two thousand 

 years ago — a tongue that has sounded 

 the slogan of the Highland clans on 

 every battlefield of the Empire ; "a 



