I4 HISTORICAL SKETCH OF PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 
     
    
   
   
    
     Canada, together with that portion of Acadia which now com- 
     
     prises the Province of New Brunswick. 
     
    
   
   
    
     No sooner had the French Acadians understood that their 
     
     country had been given up by their king, than their eyes were 
     
     turned towards the Island of St. John, to where many of them 
     
     subsequently moved, choosing to encounter the hardships and 
     
     privations incident to the settlement of a new country under 
     
     their own beloved banner, rather than be subject to the rules 
     
     of a foreign flag. Thus the permanent settlement of the Island 
     
     became established, and as the fertility of the land became 
     
     better known, each summer brought additional numbers of 
     
     settlers,——still the progress was slow. 
     
    

    
     Their earliest settlements appears to have been Pinette, 
     
     Port-le-Ioie, Crapaud, Point Prim, St. Peter’s Bay and Savage 
     
     Harbor. But a few years later, Souris, Rustico, Malpeque and 
     
     other settlements on the north shore began. The settlers 
     
     managed to provide themselves with log huts, and by fishing, 
     
     and the cultivation of a patch of ground they passed their days. 
     
    
   
   
    
     The Island was then gradually attracting the attention of 
     
     fashionable society, inasmuch as men of means were encourag- 
     
     ing trade and emigration. During the year 1720, Count de 
     
     St. Pierre, to whom His Christian Majesty granted the Isle 
     
     St. Jean, having organizeda commercial company, arrived at 
     
     Port-le—Joie with some vessels laden with horses, cattle, provi- 
     
     sions and implements of industry. These vessels also brought 
     
     passengers. A site for a business establishment was chosen on 
     
     the west of the basin near the harbo‘r’s mouth. A clearing 
     
     being made in the green woods where the land sloped towards 
     
     the water, a Governor’s house, barracks for a company of 
     
     soldiers, a church, and storehouses were erected. There was 
     
     a Governor and an Intendant having supervision over finance, 
     
     justice and police ,- while an assemblage of Mic-macs bid them 
     
     welcome to the hunting ground of their forefathers. The 
     
     Abbe Breslay was the first missionary amongst the Indians of 
     
     the Island, having arrived in I721. Members of the highest 
     
     families in France were at times included in this garrison, while 
     
     the fleur-de-lies waved proudly Over the ramparts 0f the little 
     
     fort. 
     
    

    
     A commercial company was likewise established at the 
     
     head of a Bay on the North Side, thirty odd miles from Port- 
     
     le-Joie, by Count St. Peter, where it expended large sums of