Joseph Marin, De La Malgue
(1719-1774).

Joseph Marin was born at Montreal, the son of Paul Marin (1692-1753). (In the records, Joseph is often referred to as Marin, 'fils'.) Like so many young men, Joseph was to follow his father's profession. The senior Marin had made a career of the army; and, so, at some point, Joseph joined the army.

In the winter of 1744/45, Joseph and his father were sent with a detachment of about "three hundred troops, chiefly Canadians" from Quebec in order, as a follow up to the French efforts made the previous fall, to attack Annapolis Royal. Our story shows, in that regard, that the Marins were dependent on the orders of the Governor at Louisbourg, Louis Duchambon. At the time the Marins were despatched, the French did not suspect that plans were being put into action which would see a substantial force of New Englanders arrive before the walls of Louisbourg. As we will see from our larger story, the Marins no sooner got their attack underway at Annapolis Royal when a messenger arrived with the news that Louisbourg was under siege. The French force under the Marins hurried to the aid of Louisbourg; but, while paddling towards their destination along the waters (Northumberland Strait) that separated the mainland from Ile St. Jean (Prince Edward Island) they were to meet up with a strong English force which was on the lookout for them: Marins forces were disbursed. There is evidence (Wrong, p. 43) that Marin regrouped and eventually made it through to Louisbourg; but that on approaching Louisbourg, and finding it captured, threw "himself back into the woods with his five or six hundred men, to get back to Acadia." Hannay, in his Acadia, picks up on this suggestion that Marin, in fact, made it to Louisbourg, but too late, and seeing that Louisbourg had fallen to the invading English colonials, did not engage the occupying English with his comparatively small and ill equipped force; and, that, they never were to arrive at Louisbourg.

Joseph Marin was to continue to be seasonally active in Acadia during the years 1746-48. He was with the French when Arthur Noble and his men were overcome at Battle of Grande Pré during February of 1747.

With the temporary ending of hostilities in Acadia, in 1749, Marin was sent by La Jonquière to the western frontier of New France; where, in 1759, Marin was captured and made a prisoner by the triumphant British. He, along with other important prisoners were transported to England and eventually released to France. He returned, in 1762, to Newfoundland to get involved in a lost cause. Soon he was captured and once again repatriated to France. His life in France as an ex-colonial fighter, with his assets having been lost at Quebec, and on a small pension, was quite a let down for Marin. He got his chance once again to fight for France, when, in 1773, he and his son (this time his son, his father having died in 1753) went off to Madagascar. Shortly after their arrival on the island in 1774, both Joseph Marin and his son "died of fever."