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Lying at anchor off shore, under the command of a French officer, were the French schooner and sloop from Louisbourg laden with cattle, hogs and sheep for that Port, and near by, along the shore were numerous Indian canoes. Taking these, Lewis and his men endeavoured to board the schooner and the sloop but their crews resisting fired a number of rounds from their swivels and hand arms. None hit either Lewis or his men. By putting on sail, the French ships tried to escape, but Lewis and his men with their canoes succeeded in overhauling and taking them before they got away. In spite of the French officer’s protest against his being taken as a prisoner-of-war, Lewis ordered him to be sent to Fort Cumberland to report his conduct to Colonel Monckton. The two craft, guarded by some of Lewis’ men, under Ensign Gorham were the same day delivered safe into British hands at Fort Gaspereaux on Bay Verte.* By three o’clock, Willard’s work at the village near the mouth of the
French River was over. The sun which that morning had risen on the crude and the
primitive, though peaceful habitations of the French, now mingled its hot,
mid-afternoon beams with the fierce heat of flame, smoke and ash, all that was
left of a pitiful, half-century labor of a few people to conquer the wilderness
and to set their civilization on one more shore and bay of the New World. Then
Willard drawing his men up in a body and taking the Frenchmen as prisoners moved
on to a new scene of havoc. Back |
