An Event Chronology Based on Louisbourg Accounts Not Available in the Archives of the Fortress of Louisbourg, By Eric Krause, Krause House Info-Research Solutions, 2004 - Present

1713

• September 2, 1713

In the year 1713 and the 2nd day of September, we, Joseph Ovide de Brouillant, King's Lieutenant at Plaisance, Knight of the Military Order of St. Louis, commanding His Majesty's ship Semslack with M. L'Hermitte, Major and Engineer, La Ronde and Rouville, Captains, and other officers named below, have seized and taken possession of the Island of Cape Breton, situated in the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, following the orders which we have thereon from His Most Christian Majesty, dated the 20th day of March of the present year, to place there the inhabitants of Plaisance, St. Pierre, and other places which have been ceded by the treaty of peace to the Queen of Great Britain.

We declare and testify to all whom it may concern, to have found on the said island but one French inhabitant and twenty-five or thirty families of Indians, and that the said Island of Cape Breton was ceded about eighty years ago to Messieurs Denis of Tours, who established there two forts, one in the Bay of Ste. Anne's and the other at Port St. Peter near the Strait of Canceau, of which we have still found traces, and after having visited all the ports in the said Island of Cape Breton which have been indicated to us, we believed and decided that we could not make a better choice for the present than that of Port St. Louis, formerly known as English Harbour, in which port we have this day landed the troops, the munitions of war and provisions which we have left under the orders of Sr. L'Hermitte. Signed by Decouagne, De Lavalliere, De Laperrelle, Péan Delivandiere, de Pensens, La Ronde Denys, de Rouville, Duvivier, f. Dominique De Lamarche (Recollet), L'Hermitte, St. Ovide de Brouillant.

[Source: French: C11B, Volume 1, September 2, 1713, f. 11 (Translation - J. S. McLennan, Louisbourg from its foundation to its fall (Fortress Press, 1969) - pp. 11-12]