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THE IMPACT OF ILE ROYALE ON NEW ENGLAND 1713 - 1763 by Donald F. Chard LtMAA.Ci A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. in History UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA OTTAWA, CANADA, 1976 Chard, Ottawa, Canada, 1977 UMI Number: DC54008 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI® UMI Microform DC54008 Copyright 2011 by ProQuest LLC All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER TABLE OF CONTENTS i TABLES AND MAPS ii ABBREVIATIONS iii NOTE ON DATES iv INTRODUCTION vi I. CANSO, 1710-1721: FOCAL POINT OF NEW ENGLAND- ILE ROYALE RIVALRY 1 II. PATTERNS OF TRADE, 1720-1744 34 III. THE LOUISBOURG EXPEDITION OF 1745 67 IV. VICTORY AT LOUISBOURG: ECONOMIC EXPECTATIONS AND REALIZATIONS, 1745-1748 103 V. THE BITTER FRUITS OF VICTORY: MILITARY AND SOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS OF THE 1745 ASSAULT ON LOUISBOURG 139 VI. IMPERIAL SUBSIDIES AND CURRENCY ADJUTSMENTS.. 168 VII. NEW ENGLAND'S ROLE IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF HALIFAX AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF NOVA SCOTIA 1749-1755 188 VIII. NEW ENGLAND-LOUISBOURG TRADE, 1749-1755 215 IX. POLICY AND PROFITS ON THE PERIPHERY: NEW ENG LAND AND LOUISBOURG, 1754-1758 245 X. THE FRUITS OF VICTORY, 1758-1763 274 CONCLUSION 305 BIBLIOGRAPHY 314 TABLES Shipping Entries and New England Ship Sales at Louisbourg, 1713-1744 43A New England-Louisbourg Shipping, 1758-1763... 285A Troop Strength at Louisbourg, 1758-1763 287A i ii TABLES AND GRAPHS Page 1. New England-Louisbourg and Boston-Caribbean Shipping Compared, 1715-1763 vii 2. Boston-Caribbean Shipping Compared to New England Shipping with Canso, Louisbourg, and Halifax, 1715-1755 viii 3. New England-Canso Shipping, 1715-17^ 33A k. Vessels at Louisbourg, by origin, 1713-17^ ^3A 5. New England Ships Sold at Louisbourg, 1713-17^ ^3B 6. Petitions and Memorials to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 17^6-1750, for compensation fore ser vices related to the capture and occupation of Cape Breton Island 1^9A 7. New England-Louisbourg Shipping, 1758-1763 285A 8. Troop Strength at Louisbourg, 1758-1763 287A MAPS j_. New England, Nova Scotia and lie Royale, 17^9 2. Canso, 1720 19A 3. Boston, 1720 39A k. He Royale, 1751 229A ABBREVIATIONS A.C. - Archives des Colonies A.D. - Archives Departmentales A.N. - Archives Nationales C.C.G.R.I. - Colonial Correspondence of the Governors of Rhode Island CO. - Colonial Office C.S.P., Col.- Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series M.H.S. - Massachusetts Historical Society N.Y.C.D. - Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York P.A.N.S. - Public Archives of Nova Scotia P.R.O. - Public Record Office R.C.R.I. - Records of the Colony of Rhode Island W.O. - War Office iv A NOTE ON DATES Problems arise in studying the history of the French and British empires in the eighteenth century prior to 1752 because the two empires employed different calendars. The Julian calendar ("Old Style"), used by Britain prior to 1752, lagged eleven days behind the Gregorian calendar ("New Style"), followed by the French. The following correspondence may be made: Julian (O.S.) Gregorian (N.S.) 22 April nkh 3 May Ijkk For the sake of simplicity, dates are given in this thesis as they were found. Dates from English-speak ing primary sources prior to 1752 will therefore be eleven days behind dates from French primary sources. Louisbourg New England,Nova Scotia & He Royale 100 =t Miles vi Introduction By sheer volume and monetary value, New England's recorded trade with Louisbourg was only occasionally as important to New England as was that region's trade with the West Indies. Nor is it likely that Louis bourg was often in the minds of most New Englanders except in war years. Nevertheless, Louisbourg had a significant impact on New England when both the direct and the indirect effects are considered. In addition to the recorded direct trade there was unrecorded trade between New England fishermen at Canso and their French counterparts there and at nearby Port Toulouse. There the profits made from supplying military establish ments in Nova Scotia made necessary at least in part by the French presence at Louisbourg. These establishments ranged from the modest garrisons at Annapolis Royal and Canso, to the large civilian-military settlement later established at Halifax. There were also expeditions against Louisbourg to be supplied, and French coinage from Louisbourg to earned from the Acadians. Beyond all this, Louisbourg's relationship to New England is significant in that it reveals much about the ways in which members of the New England merchant community dealt with some of their major pre occupations. New England merchants affected (directly or indirectly) by Louisbourg did not always achieve their objectives in attempting to cope with the implications of Louisbourg's existence in the years be tween its establishment in 1713 and its abrupt decline in 1763, but the efforts they made to deal with what they saw as major concerns reveal much about their values and attitudes, and the effects of those values and attitudes on other segments of the population. New England's merchant community, although hardly an homogeneous lot, had four collective goals at the end of the seventeenth century. 1. See Table 1 for one index to the scale of the trade carried on by New England with Louisbourg as compared with Boston's trade with the Caribbean. See Table 2 for a rough comparison of the Boston- Caribbean trade on the one hand with, on the other hand, the combined trade New England carried on with Canso, Louisbourg, and Halifax. vii Table 1 New England-Louisbourg aai Doston-Caribbean Chipping Compared, 1715-1763 1720 1725 1730 1735 17^0 17^5 1750 1755 1760 1765 Boston- clearances for the Caribbean. New England-Louisbourg shipping. 1. Based on Historical Statisticst Colonial Times to 1957. R. Pares, Yankees and Creoles, and Boston Evening Post. 2. Based on Boston Evening Postt Correspondance generale, ile Royale, series CUB; New Hampshire Naval Office Lists, Colonial Office 5/967, viii Table 2 Boston-Caribbean Shipping compared to New England Shipping with Canso, Louisbourg, and Halifax, 1715-1755 1715 1720 1725 1730 1735 1740 1745 1750 1755 Boston-Caribbean shipping. New England shipping to Canso, Louisbourg and Halifax. ix These were: "to maintain connections with highly placed individuals in England; to dominate the colonial councils; to control the English functionaries in the colonial service; and to find a solution of the money problems which had been created by the enforcement of the naviga tion laws and the imbalance of trade."^ Many of the same problems which bedeviled New England's merchants at the end of the seventeenth century persisted in the period 1713-1763, and therefore the goals of the merchant community remained much the same. The extent to which Louisbourg affected attempts by New England merchants to grapple with their basic problems varied from time to time, and from colony to colony within New England. Nevertheless, it is clear that within the first decade of Louisbourg's establishment, the French presence on Cape Breton Island had important implications for segments of the New England merchant community. As the French sought to develop Cape Breton Island to compensate for the loss of Placentia under the Treaty of Utrecht, New England merchants attempted to capitalize on opportunities to trade with the French, and New England fishermen attempted to capitalize on Britain's acquisition of Nova Scotia to develop the fishing bases previously denied them by the French. Conflicts over territory arose at Canso, where both French and New Englander fished and traded. Finally, in 1718, the Massachusetts government, at the behest of fishermen and merchants of that colony who had begun to find some aspects of contact with the French at Canso troublesome, launched an attack on the French at Canso, and succeeded in driving them out. 3 Massachusetts' action at Canso, authorized by a Governor from England, suggests that the merchant community dominated the colony's government (in relation to this specific issue, at least), and that it had influential connections with highly placed individuals in Britain. 2. B. Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (New York, 1964), 189. One might question the extent to which the navigation laws were enforced in the American colonies prior to 1763, as O.M. Dickerson has so capably done in The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution (Philadelphia, 1951), but there is little doubt that New England laboured under a serious imbalance of payments with Britain. x Governor Samuel Shute, often at odds with his colonial advisers on other issues, such as currency problems, not only agreed that action at Canso was necessary and sent a vessel there to resolve the problem, he also backed the colonists in their subsequent campaign to convince the British government of the wisdom of the action - an act of aggression initiated in the face of an entente between Britain and France. More over, the effort succeeded. The British government accepted Massachusetts' reasons for having risked upsetting the entente.