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Researching the
Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
Recherche sur la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg Lieu historique national du Canada
THE CONSTRUCTION AND OCCUPATION OF THE BARRACKS OF THE KING'S BASTION
BY
BLAINE ADAMS
JULY, 1971
(Fortress of Louisbourg
Report H A 13)
CHRONOLOGY OF CONSTRUCTION
1722
For the first time, dispatches from France displayed impatience with the rate of construction in Louisbourg. De Verville was sent a carefully worded letter:
The Ministry enjoins you to press on as much as you can with the new barracks so that the soldiers, the Swiss and the sappers can live there at the end of the fall. It is even to be wished that part of the officers could be lodged there at the same time. (1)
Separate letters were sent to De Mesy and Saint Ovide. The former was told it was the King's intention that the works at Louisbourg proceed without a single change. The latter, who had complained about the miserable conditions in which the soldiers were lodged, was assured that De Verville would complete enough of the barracks to house them.(2)
On the first of August, De Verville, feeling the sting of the mild rebuke, informed the ministry that the sub-engineers had vigourously carried on the construction, that the barracks all had their foundation, and that the governor's wing was partly slated.(3) However, in September he was again complaining of the lack of workmen and claimed that if extra men were sent on the first ships leaving France for the next two years, he would be able to do three years' work in two.(4) The King's Lieutenant, acting in the absence of the governor, who with De Verville had left for France, reported at the end of the year that only 10 rooms for the troops had been finished and of these, two were used as an armory and guardhouse. In the other eight, five French and one Swiss company were lodged. He assured the minister:
I have urged the contractor as much as I was able, to finish the rooms to house the few troops who remain in this port as sentries.(5)
ENDNOTES
1. Council to De Verville, 13 May 1722, AN. Col., B. vol. 45(2), f. 1120.
2. Council to De Mesy and to Saint Ovide, 13 May 1722, AN, Col., B. vol. 45(2), f. 1123v & 1131v.
3. De Verville to Council, 1 August 1722, AN. Col., C11B, vol. 6, ff. 114-15v.
4. De Verville to Council, 20 September 1722, AN. Col., C11B, vol. 6, ff. 116-17v.
5. Bourville to Council, 5 December 1722, AN. Col., C11B, vol. 6, f. 99.