Louisbourg2013 Website Design and Content © 2008 by Eric Krause, Krause House Info-Research Solutions (© 1996)
Researching the
Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site of Canada
Recherche sur la Forteresse-de-Louisbourg Lieu historique national du Canada
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LOUISBOURG 2013
The 300th
Anniversary Of The Founding Of Louisbourg | Le 300e Anniversaire De La Fondation
De Louisbourg
LOUISBOURG 1713
TAKING POSSESSION
"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. "
[J.S. McLennan, Louisbourg from its foundation to its fall, 1713-1758
(Sydney: Fortress Press, 1969), pp. 11-12]
MORE TO FOLLOW
