Dabbler when sketching one day is asked, "Ain't some of your
party writing a book?" The interrogator's mind is set at rest by being
answered that the reason we have become animated notes of interrogation
is because we are interested in the history of the old town; but it is
fearful to think for what that innocent lad is responsible: putting
notions in people's heads, and causing this volume to be inflicted on a
suffering world!
To return to our subject. The olive branch was not yet to be the emblem
of this spot, now so peaceful, for a colony of Scotch people were next
routed (1628), and the place left in ruins, when a season of quiet
ensued; but this was virtually the commencement of the French and
English wars in North America, continuing, with slight intermissions,
until the treaty of 1763, by which France gave up her possessions in
America.
In 1634 Port Royal fell into French hands again, when Claude de Razilly
was Governor, and here for a short time lived La Tour, one of his
lieutenants, who kept up such bitter feuds with D'Aulnay, who held like
position to his own, and whose story Whittier relates in his poem, "St.
John, 1647".
Madatae de la Tour must have been one of the earliest advocates of
women's rights, as she so bravely held the fort of St. John in her
husband's absence.
"'But what of my lady?'
Cried Charles of Estienne
On the shot-crumbled turret
Thy lady was seen
Half veiled in the smoke cloud
Her hand grasped thy pennon,
While her dark tresses swayed
In the hot breath of cannon,
Of its sturdy defenders,
Thy lady alone
Saw the cross-blazoned banner
Float over St John.
Alas for thy lady!
No service from thee
Is needed by her
Whom the Lord hath set free:
Nine days, in stern silence,
Her thralldom she bore,
But the tenth morning came
And Death opened her door'"
Hannay says she was "the first and greatest of Acadian heroines, - a
woman whose name is as proudly enshrined in the history of this land as
that of any sceptered queen in European story."
For a long series of years this post of Port Royal was the bone of
contention between the French and English; the fort, being held for a
time by one power, then by the other, representing the shuttle-cock when
these contending nations battled at her doors. In 1654 the place was
held by the French under Le Borgne. An attack by the English was
successful, though the French were well garrisoned and provisioned.
In De Razilly's time La Tour, who might have been satisfied with his
possessions at St. John, assailed it; then English pirates took the
fishing fleet (1684); next Sir William Phipps captured and pillaged the
fort in 1690.
