Francis Duncan - History of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, Vol. 1

The capture of Minorca during the war involved a small train for Port Mahon in that Island; and another was required for Annapolis in 1710.

After the Peace of Utrecht, the Ordnance Board found that in addition to its small peace establishment in England there were four trains to keep up permanently, whether in peace or war, which were not required before. These were the trains of North Britain, Gibraltar, Port Mahon, and a joint train for service in Placentia and Annapolis.

The raison d'être of the trains at the first three of these places has already been given. To explain the circumstances under which the other places became a charge on the Ordnance will require another chapter.

On the Nova Scotian side of the Bay of Fundy, immediately opposite the City of St. John, New Brunswick, there is a narrow inlet of the sea, walled by perpendicular and densely wooded hills. A few scattered cottages, belonging to fishermen, speck the deep green of the forest, as the traveller passes up this narrow channel, known by the uneuphonious name of Digby Gut. Digby is a small picturesque village, immediately inside the channel, which here opens out into a wide basin, large enough to float mighty navies, and beyond description beautiful. In the spring of 1604, a French Protestant, M. de Monts, first discovered this harbour of safety, and one of his comrades, Potrincourt by name, was so enchanted by its beauties, that he applied to the French monarch for a grant of the surrounding district. At the end of the basin, furthest from the entrance and at the mouth of a river, now called the Cornwallis river, he built a Fort and a village, to which he gave the name of Port Royal. The history of this little village has been one of marvellous interest; and until the beginning of the eighteenth century, it was written in letters of blood. Since it finally became the property of England, its existence has been a peaceful one; and now, alas, the mouldering ramparts, the tumbling, grass-grown walls of the old fort, and the windowless, stairless barrack, proclaim in unmistakable language the advent of a new colonial epoch, and the retreat of British troops before that new enemy – expense. The train required for its defence, after its final capture, was one of the arguments used in favour of creating a permanent force of Artillery in England; and for more than a century this village of Port Royal, or Annapolis, has been entwined in the history of the Royal Artillery.

If all historical researches were pursued in such beautiful localities, the historian would be the veriest sybarite of literature. By the tumbling fortifications now stands one of the loveliest villages on the face of this world. The river, at whose mouth it is built, wanders through a valley, which, in summer, is like a dream of beauty. Rich intervalle land on either bank, covered with heavy crops of every kind; fields and gardens studded with apple-trees, planted by the old French inhabitants; grapes in heavy clusters growing and ripening in the open air, and clean, white churches and cottages studding the landscape for miles; all unite in forming a picture, like the Utopia which haunts the dreamer's mind. The garden of Canada – an Artilleryman may well rejoice that so lovely a spot had a share in the birth of the corps to which he belongs.

The early history of the place may be summed up in a few words. In 1606, an addition to the little colony was made of more French emigrants; cultivation of the soil, and the breeding of cattle occupied the peaceful inhabitants; and they lived in perfect amity with the surrounding Indians. Difficulties having arisen about the original charter, Potrincourt went to France, and secured from the King the grant of the territory: subject, however, to a distasteful condition, that he should take two Jesuit priests with him on his return. He did so; but made them as uncomfortable as he could, and in 1613, they left him to join a settlement, also near the Bay of Fundy, vowing vengeance against him in their hearts. Although England and France were at peace, a sea rover from Virginia, named Argoll, came with his ship, and pillaged the Jesuits' new home, killing one, and making the other prisoner. Fired by his success, and urged and guided by the revengeful priest, he next fitted out an expedition against Port Royal, and succeeded in destroying the fort, and scattering the settlers, some of whom joined the neighbouring Indian tribes. During the next few years, more French immigrants settled in a scattered, unmethodical way, over the province of Nova Scotia, or Acadia, as it was called; and some coming to Port Royal, the little colony commenced to revive.

But in 1627, Kirke's fleet sailed from England to destroy the French settlements in Nova Scotia; and among others, he ravaged unhappy Port Royal. And from this time dates the struggle in America between France and England, which lasted a hundred years. In 1629, it may be said, that we had added Nova Scotia to our possessions; but in 1632, we gave it back to France; Charles I. having been in treaty with the French King, even while our expedition in America was at work, and having consented to let the French have Quebec and all our recent American conquests back again. In 1655, Cromwell recovered Port Royal, by means of an expedition he sent for that purpose, under one Major Sedgwick. The fort had by this time been strengthened and armed; but it had to surrender to the impetuosity of our troops. Much labour and money was now spent on the fortifications by the English, but all to no purpose, for by the treaty of Breda, Charles II. ceded Nova Scotia to the French again. Certainly, the Stuarts were cruel to our colonies; and it required all the enterprise of our merchants, and all the courage and skill of our seamen and fishermen to resist utter extinction under the treatment they received. The day was to come – and to last for many a year, when a worse evil than the Stuarts was to blight our colonies – the nightmare of the Colonial Office. As the former was the positive, so it was the comparative degree of colonial endurance. Is it true that a superlative degree is coming on them now? Is it true, that in our Statesmen's minds there exists a coldness, an indifference to our colonies, which in time of trial or danger will certainly pass into impatience, and anxiety to be free from colonial appendages?

If it be so, then, indeed, the superlative degree of blundering and misery is approaching; but the misery, like the blundering, will be found this time, not in the colonies, but in England.

For sixteen years after the treaty of Breda, Port Royal was left comparatively undisturbed; the French population reaching, in the year 1671, 361 souls; 364 acres having been brought under cultivation, and nearly 1000 sheep and cattle being owned by the settlers.

In 1680, however, the English again, for the fifth time, obtained possession of it; and again lost it. After its recapture, and before 1686, considerable additions had been made to the fortifications by the French; and in the treaty of that year between France and England, it was resolved – a resolution which was never kept – that although the mother countries might quarrel, their respective American subjects might continue to maintain mutual peaceable relations. After the Revolution of 1688, war broke out in Europe once more between France and England, and their American children followed suit. Port Royal being the head-quarters for the French ships attracted the attention of Sir William Phipps, who after capturing and pillaging it abandoned it again to the French.

And the treaty of Ryswick again officially announced that the whole of Nova Scotia was French territory.

In 1699, and again in 1701, considerable labour was devoted by the French to strengthening the works of Port Royal; an increase to the garrison was made from France, and the militia in the surrounding settlements were carefully trained and armed.