CH ACR TAG oR he 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Island Reunited to the Royal Domain 
     
    
   
   
    
     THE failure of the Comte de Saint Pierre and the 
     
     fear of English encroachment finally spurred the 
     
     French Government to action. In the autumn of 
     
     1725 the Royal ship Dromadaire arrived in Louis- 
     
     burg bearing despatches from the Minister of Marine 
     
     and Colonies instructing St. Ovide de Brouillan to 
     
     send a captain and ensign with twenty-five or thirty 
     
     soldiers to take formal possession of the island and 
     
     thus deprive the English of their badly founded 
     
     notion that they could establish a footing there. 
     
     These despatches arrived too late in the season to 
     
     permit of immediate execution, but the Governor of 
     
     Ile Royale promised to attend to the matter as soon 
     
     as navigation opened in the following spring. 
     
    

    
     To lead this important expedition he selected de 
     
     Pensens, the only available officer upon whose pru- 
     
     dence and worth he could rely. This officer, who had 
     
     once been employed to negotiate with the English for 
     
     the removal of the Acadians to Cape Breton, seemed 
     
     quite surprised when ordered to hold himself in readi- 
     
     ness for the venture, merely as captain of twenty-five 
     
     or thirty men, being at the time in command of a full 
     
     company at Port Toulouse. However, he was too well 
     
     disciplined and too good an officer to think of refus- 
     
     ing, although he solicited the title of Lieutenant de 
     
     Roi and asked for a force of at least one or two com- 
     
     panies so as to make it possible for him to repulse the