Significant Historical Happenings By Year: 1697-99.
- -1697-
§In Europe we find that Charles the II, the Spanish king, at the end of a two hundred year male line, is dying; and, there is no front runner for the Spanish throne; the European belligerents are each pushing there own particular candidate.
§Iberville sacks the English communities in Newfoundland and then, braving wind and storms takes the English posts in Hudson Bay.
§The English send eight men-of-war to work the waters off of Newfoundland.
§At Chebucto, now Halifax, a French company, the Company of Acadia, established a short lived fishing station. This fishing station was run by Huguenots; most of whom gave up and removed themselves to Boston.
§Baptiste was captured and made a prisoner of the English in the Spring of 1697.
§November 15th, 1697: Villebon reports that French fishing vessels are being overpowered on the Grand Banks by a "brigantine fitted out at Boston, with six guns and eighty men" and took the French fishermen to Boston.
§November 30th, 1697: Villebon reports that the priest, on the way to say mass at the fort, drowns; and, bemoans, "Father Simon having gone to Port Royal, we are now without a priest on this river."
§December, 1697: Villebon soldiers on the St. John sawing boards, and are cutting and hauling fire wood.
§September of 1697: Treaty of Ryswick signed.
§During 1697, the following seigneuries are granted: Pierre-Noel Legardeur de Tilly, Tatamagouche; Boissellery Noel, Cape St. Louis (Pictou); and Charles Deny de Vitre, Antigonish-Canso.- -1698-
§January & February, 1698: Villebon reports, "very severe winter."
§March, 1698: Villebon reports that there is very little to be found at Port Royal. The settlers of Minas are to grind as much flour as they can.
§March 11th, 1698: Villebon reports: "We continue to saw boards and planks."
§April 21st, 1698: A ship from Boston arrives at the St. John with news of Treaty of Ryswick and the resulting peace.
§April 28th, 1698: Villebon replies to the Massachusettes governor Stoughton: He shall await word from French authority.
§June 1st, 1698: Villebon receives independent word of peace through fishermen from Quebec.
§August 2nd, 1698: Villebon arrives at Port Royal.
§August 13th, 1698: Villebon arrives at Minas with Bonaventure and L'Hermitte.
§August 15th, 1698: Villebon orders a salute at Minas. He meets Father Thury who "arrived the same day on his way back from Chibucto."
§August 19th, 1698: Villebon leaves Minas and arrives at Beaubassin on the 21st.
§August 25th, 1698: Villebon arrives back at the St. John.
§September, 1698: Villebon builds his new headquarters at the mouth of the St. John.
§Madockawando, chief of the Penobscots, and the father-in-law of Castin died in 1698.
§June 5th, 1698: Father Thury dies at Chebucto.
§With the election a new English parliament in 1698, on the pledge of peace and the reduction of taxation, there came about an indifference to foreign affairs and a reduction in the army from 14,000 men to 7,000 men.
§Villebon moves into his new quarters at the mouth of St. John, likely in the fall.
§November 28, 1698: Frontenac dies at Quebec.- -1699-
§Spring: A French cruiser comes from France, La Nieuport, Captain Courbon St. Leger, and arrives, and works the waters of Acadia with the express purpose of keeping fishermen of New England clear of these French territorial waters.
§August 20, 1699: Diereville departs La Rochelle.
§October 1st, circa: Diereville's vessel, runs into Chebucto (current day Halifax Harbour).
§October 13th, 1699: Diereville arrives at Port Royal.
§Villebon in one of his reports makes reference to the French decision to fortify Port Royal next year.
§There is now, in 1699, regular traffic "by boat up to the head of the tide of the Port Royal River (Annapolis River), thence over land 75 odd miles on a "good level road to the outlying homesteads of Minas; the whole journey can be made in a day ... The settlers now bring their animals, sheep, and even pigs, from one place to the other with great ease."
§"There is a saw-mill in Minas, and another is to be built; and, as the settlers are distributed along the rivers, they have a windmill and seven or eight mills ['tide mills']."
§There were two families living at la Heve.
§1699: Louis XIV appoints Pontchartrain as his Chancellor. - -1698-