Significant Historical Happenings By Year: 1724-26.
- -1724-
§June, 1724: The English are concerned that the French Inhabitants are not keeping certain of the dykes in a proper state of repair. One could speculate that the Acadians did not believe that they would be staying on the lands.
§July 4th, 1724: Annapolis Royal attacked by "Micmac and Malecite Indians." "Barbarously Murthered a Serg.t of this Garrison itself and were the Means of Another Man's being killed and An Officer and three private Men Dangerously Wounded & of the firing of two English houses and the taking of two men of this garrison with a woman and two Children who have been Since Releas'd out of their hands by the French Inhabitants."
§July, 1724: The English hold ten Indians and kill one as an example.
§November, 1724: Father René-Charles Breslay after having served a "short stint" at Louisbourg arrives at Annapolis Royal to minister to the French Acadians at that place.
§May 9, 1724: In a despatch to St. Ovide: we see that Verrier, a well known military engineer, "goes to Ile Royale on Victoire with M. de Verville.
§At Louisbourg, in 1724, the parish bell, "Marie-Joseph," is "installed and baptized."
§The hospital at Louisbourg is expanded so as to have 104 beds. The structure, built of solid masonry, was to occupy a city block.
§Isabeau, the French contractor likely in November after the fortification work had come to an end for another season, circa November, boards the Victoire to return to France for the winter: he died while at sea.
§Matthieu Martin, the first Acadian to be born in Acadia (b.1636) dies around this time at his seigneury at Cobequid (the present day Truro).- -1725-
§May, 1725: Armstrong returns from England as the Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia; he first arrives at Canso (1725) and then proceeds to Annapolis Royal in 1726.
§The French, in an official despatch, make reference to "an expedition of the Abénakis against Port Royal." The French conclude that it is for this reason that Armstrong subjects the missionary at Port Royal to "ill-use." Armstrong expels the missionaries at both Port Royal and Minas who then make their way to Louisbourg.
§The French king "establishes a fund of 150,000 livres for the year's work" at Louisbourg. We note how it is intended to employ two ships, La Victoire and Le Dromadaire to carry "900 cubic feet of cut stone from the quarries of Ste. Mesme."
§St. Ovide sends a plan to France for a road from "Louisbourg to Lake Mineé."
§Acadian carpenters are being hired at Louisbourg. Also Acadian cattle are coming into Louisbourg in trade.
§The governor, St. Ovide, at Louisbourg, receives a direction from the authorities back in France that it is "more suitable that the lands along the Louisbourg wharves should be occupied by fishermen than by tavern keepers." "Decrees regulating both the cabarets, Louisbourg's favourite pastime, and the consumption of alcoholic beverages were issued or reissued every year from 1719 to 1722 and again in 1727 and 1728. Yet by 1726 there were 15 taverns, excluding canteens for the soldiers, for a resident population of slightly less than a thousand, a situation explained by Méy's [the financial commissary at Louisbourg] attitude that 'soldiers and sailors must be able to drink since they work only for that.'"
§August 27th, 1725: Le Chameau lost off the coast of Cape Breton, but a few miles from Louisbourg.
§December 15th, 1725: At a conference at Boston, the Indian tribes of Nova Scotia and New England bring themselves under the law of England by acknowledging the jurisdiction and domain of King George the 1st; in that there be no "private revenge" and that "the tribe from which the offender or offenders come "shall cause satisfaction & restitution to be made" and they "shall not help to convey away any soldiers" and that "prisoners be released..." This treaty was to be ratified at Annapolis Royal; presumably it was.- -1726-
§The authorities at Annapolis Royal receive a "Monsr. Charles LaTour" who came in his vessel bearing a letter from St. Ovide requesting that this French vessel to stay "till the Spring & to purchase Some few Eatables & other Refreshments of which both he & the other Officers there were much in Need of ..."
§September, 1726: Armstrong's servant is charged and found guilty of "assaulting and offering him [Armstrong] Violence."
§November, 19th, 1726: Captain John Doucett (b.?), the commander at Annapolis Royal (1717-26) dies. (Incidently, Doucett was likely born in England. It is reported (DCB) that he had with him at Annapolis Royal, his wife [her name unknown] and they had six children. Now, in Nova Scotia, Doucett is a well known French family name: Query? Is Captain John Doucett the progenitor of the Doucetts of Nova Scotia?)
§Mascarene, in 1726, to have a forth child and third daughter born to him, Margaret, who was eventually to come to Nova Scotia as a loyalist during the American Revolution.
§The Indian war is brought to an end by a treaty signed at Annapolis Royal (June 15, 1726) and Boston (November of 1726).
§According to a French despatch there are 2,500 "communicants" at Shubénécadie.
§We see at Louisbourg an ecclesiastical power struggle. Louisbourg, during its early days, had Brittany Recollects which catered to the spiritual needs of both the civilian and the military populations (different churches, each with their own Recollect). In 1726, the Bishop at Quebec determined to "assert his Episcopal authority." To achieve his ends the Bishop sent down, from Quebec, a diocesan priest, Father Fornel, but 29 years of age. There followed political intrigue (nothing new) at Louisbourg as the civil authorities fought the interference from Quebec: "The civil authorities of Louisbourg, always favouring the Brittany Recollects ..."
§The French king establishes another fund of 150,000 livres. "The King is pleased with the progress made on the works of the Louisbourg fortification." A concentrated effort is made in respect to "The Royal Battery" and that of "Ile de l'Entrée. It is expected that by the following year these particular fortifications were to be completed. - -1725-