MILITARY AND CIVIL. 15 
     
    
   
   
    
     money in developing their property, but their venture was 
     
     unfortunate. 
     
    
   
   
    
     In 173°, M. Depenoons arrived at Port—le-Joie as Governor. 
     
     He was followed by Le Percelie du Hagu, and in 1738 by 
     
     Cheveller Dupont Duchambon, who seven years later at the 
     
     fall of Louisburg, ceded the Island of St. John over to the 
     
     British Crown 
     
    
   
   
    
     About the year 1739, a vast forest fire devastated the country 
     
     from the East Point to St. Peter’s Bay, thence southward to the 
     
     Hillsborough River and westward to Bedford Bay; it was so 
     
     extremely violent that all the fishing vessels at Morell River 
     
     and St. Peter’s Bay, besides many dwellings and storehouses 
     
     were consumed. 
     
    
   
   
    
     At the evacuation of their trading posts, Acadian families 
     
     drifted to Baie de le Fortune and to Three Rivers. At this 
     
     latter settlement, brick, bottles, glassware, etc., were made. 
     
     This place was defended by a fort. It may also be observed 
     
     that places of worship were erected at almost every hamlet, 
     
     where mass was said by missionaries sent from France. Thus 
     
     was Christianity first introduced to our shores. 
     
    
   
   
    
     Meanwhile it was with reluctance, and as it afterwards 
     
     appeared, with a secret determination to embrace the first 
     
     favorable opportunity of retaking them, that France ceded 
     
     Newfoundland and Nova Scotia to England. With this object 
     
     in view the French selected a spacious harbor on the eastern 
     
     coast of Cape Breton, where they founded a city denominated 
     
     Louisburg, in honor of the reigning monarch, Louis the Four- 
     
     teenth. Here, on retiring from Nova Scotia in 1713, the 
     
     French established their government; special attention there— 
     
     fore was paid in regard to its defence and protection. Around 
     
     the city a stone wall was built over thirty feet in height 
     
     and more than two miles in circuit: there were six bastons 
     
     and three batteries, containing embrasures for one hundred 
     
     and forty—eight cannon and morters. At the entrance to the 
     
     harbor stood the lighthouse and a battery of thirty 28 pounders. 
     
     'I_‘hus in thirty years building, and at a cost of thirty-two million 
     
     livres in money, Louisburg became a potent fortress and the 
     
     greatest bulwark of the maritime possessions in America. 
     
    
   
   
    
     _ Events had now occurred in Europe which involved England 
     
     in a continental war, but France arranging herself on the