The
Duc d'Anville Expedition (June–October 1746) was sent from France to recapture peninsular
AcadiaAcadia was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire of New France, in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine. At the end of the 16th century, France claimed territory stretching as far south as...
(present-day mainland
Nova ScotiaNova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
). The expedition was the largest military force ever to set sail for the New World prior to the
American RevolutionThe American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
. The effort to take the Nova Scotian capital,
Annapolis RoyalAnnapolis Royal is a town located in the western part of Annapolis County, Nova Scotia. Known as Port Royal until the Conquest of Acadia in 1710 by Britain, the town is the oldest continuous European settlement in North America, north of St...
was also supported on land by a force from
QuebecQuebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...
. Along with recapturing Acadia from the British,
d'AnvilleJean-Baptiste Louis Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de Roye was made duc d'Anville by King Louis XV of France and pursued a military career in the French navy...
was ordered to "consign Boston to flames, ravage New England and waste the British West Indies." News of the expedition spread fear throughout New York and
New EnglandNew England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
.
The expedition was a complete failure. It was beset by bad weather and took three months to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Many in the ships' crews and the troops being transported fell ill before the expedition finally reached Chebucto Bay (present-day
Halifax HarbourHalifax Harbour is a large natural harbour on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, located in the Halifax Regional Municipality.-Harbour description:The harbour is called Jipugtug by the Mi'kmaq first nation, anglisized as Chebucto...
), and d'Anville died not long after its arrival. His successors in command attempted to mount an assault on Annapolis Royal, but eventually gave up and returned to France.
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowHenry Wadsworth Longfellow was an American poet and educator whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and Evangeline...
immortalized the expedition with his poem
A Ballad of the French Fleet.
Historic context
The British had conquered Acadia by defeating the capital in the
Siege of Port Royal (1710)The Siege of Port Royal , also known as the Conquest of Acadia, was conducted by British regular and provincial forces under the command of Francis Nicholson against a French Acadian garrison under the command of Daniel d'Auger de Subercase, at the Acadian capital, Port Royal...
. Over the next fifty years, the French and their allies made six unsuccessful military attempts to regain the capital. The Duc d'Anville expedition, which was coordinated with Ramezay's expedition from Quebec, was the last French attempt to retake the capital of Acadia. After the stinging French defeat at the
Siege of Louisbourg (1745)The Siege of Louisbourg took place in 1745 when a New England colonial force aided by a British fleet captured Louisbourg, the capital of the French province of Île-Royale during the War of the Austrian Succession, known as King George's War in the British colonies.Although the Fortress of...
during
King George's WarKing George's War is the name given to the operations in North America that formed part of the War of the Austrian Succession . It was the third of the four French and Indian Wars. It took place primarily in the British provinces of New York, Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, and Nova Scotia...
,
King Louis XVLouis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...
sent the expedition to win back
AcadiaAcadia was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire of New France, in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine. At the end of the 16th century, France claimed territory stretching as far south as...
by conquering the capital
Annapolis Royal, Nova ScotiaAnnapolis Royal is a town located in the western part of Annapolis County, Nova Scotia. Known as Port Royal until the Conquest of Acadia in 1710 by Britain, the town is the oldest continuous European settlement in North America, north of St...
.
Preparation
The expedition included 11,000 men and a fleet of 64 ships. The expedition was led by French Admiral
Jean-Baptiste Louis Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de RoyeJean-Baptiste Louis Frédéric de La Rochefoucauld de Roye was made duc d'Anville by King Louis XV of France and pursued a military career in the French navy...
, Duc d'Anville. The fitting-out of this fleet was slow and difficult, and it did not set sail from
Île-d'AixÎle-d'Aix is a commune in the Charente-Maritime department off the west coast of France. It occupies the territory of small island of Île d'Aix in the Atlantic. It is a popular place for tourist day-trips during the summer months.-Location:...
, France until 22 June 1746. A subsequent storm in the
Bay of BiscayThe Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
and adverse winds slowed the transatlantic crossing. Disease broke out on the ships –
typhusEpidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and
scurvyScurvy is a disease resulting from a deficiency of vitamin C, which is required for the synthesis of collagen in humans. The chemical name for vitamin C, ascorbic acid, is derived from the Latin name of scurvy, scorbutus, which also provides the adjective scorbutic...
.
The fleet ran into a long, dead calm off the
AzoresThe Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
. This ended in a storm, during which several vessels were struck by lightning, which, in one case, caused a magazine explosion that killed and wounded over thirty men. By 24 August, the expedition had been at sea for over two months but was still three hundred leagues (nine hundred miles) from Nova Scotia.
On 10 September, lead elements of the expedition had arrived at Sable Island. Three days later the vessels were scattered by a violent gale that seriously damaged some ships, which were consequently forced to return to France. One of the damaged vessels was
Le Mars (pictured above). She was heavily damaged and taking on water in the storm off Sable Island and decided to return to France with the
Le Raphael. Several weeks later another gale hit, damaging the ship Le Mars further and separating her from
Le Raphael. Twenty leagues off Ireland the
HMS NottinghamHMS Nottingham was a 60-gun fourth rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built at Deptford Dockyard and launched on 10 June 1703. She was the first ship to bear the name....
severely damaged Le Raphael in an attack and took her as a prize. (During the
French and Indian WarThe French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
, the ship Le Mars sank in Halifax Harbour after hitting a rock - known to this day as "Mars Rock".)
An expedition under the command of
Jean-Baptiste Nicolas Roch de RamezayJean-Baptiste Nicolas Roch, seigneur de Ramezay, born September 4, 1708, in Montreal, and died May 7, 1777, in Blaye , was an officer of the marines and colonial administrator for New France during the 17th century...
was sent from Quebec to work with d'Anville's expedition. French priest
Jean-Louis Le LoutreAbbé Jean-Louis Le Loutre was a Catholic priest and missionary for the Paris Foreign Missions Society...
was to coordinate the two expeditions. De Ramezay's force arrived in Nova Scotia in July 1746. He had 700 soldiers and 21 officers. He made camp at
BeaubassinBeaubassin was the first settlement on the Isthmus of Chignecto, Nova Scotia, which was Acadian. The area is now known as the Tantramar Marshes. Beaubassin was settled in 1672, the second Acadian village to be established after Port Royal. The village was one of the largest and most prosperous in...
, where he was met by 300 Abenaki from St. John River and about 300 Mi'kmaq from Nova Scotia. The total French-Indian force numbered close to 1,300 men. De Ramezay's soldiers spent the summer and the fall waiting for the arrival of the long overdue D'Anville expedition. (During this time period, Ramzay sent troops to British-occupied
Port-La-JoyePort-la-Joye—Fort Amherst is a National Historic Site of Canada in Prince Edward Island, Canada, commemorating the location's double distinction in hosting both the oldest permanent European settlement on Ile Saint-Jean and the first military fortification on the island to be built by the British...
on present-day
Prince Edward IslandPrince Edward Island is a Canadian province consisting of an island of the same name, as well as other islands. The maritime province is the smallest in the nation in both land area and population...
. In a fierce battle, Ramzay's men killed forty British troops and imprisoned the rest.)
Acadia
The d'Anville expedition finally reached Nova Scotia in late September, after enduring a three month voyage. Hundreds of sailors and soldiers had died and hundreds more were gravely ill, suffering from disease. Forty-four vessels anchored in Chebucto (present day Halifax, Nova Scotia), where the expedition would spend the next five weeks.
The sick were brought ashore near Birch Cove in the harbour's Bedford Basin. Some recovered from scurvy with the arrival of fresh supplies brought by the Acadians from Grand Pre and Pisiquid, but typhus and typhoid continued to ravage the men.
Within six days of his arrival, on 27 September, d'Anville died of disease. (He was buried on Georges Island in what is now Halifax Harbour. His remains stayed there for three years before being taken to Louisbourg in September 1749 during the establishment of Halifax.)
On 29 September a council of war led by d'Anville's replacement, Constantin-Louis d'Estourmel, decided to send 1,500 men from the expedition and 300 from the Ramezay expedition to attack Annapolis Royal. D'Estourmel became overwhelmed and discouraged and quickly resigned after a suicide attempt.
The next to assume control of the expedition was the Governor General designate of New France and passenger with the fleet
Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de la Jonquière, Marquis de la JonquièreJacques-Pierre de Taffanel de la Jonquière was a French admiral and Governor General of New France from March 1, 1746 until his death in 1752.De la Jonquière was born near Albi...
. The plan to attack the capital Annapolis Royal intensified, even while men continued to die of disease. By mid-October, 41 percent of the men who reached Chebucto with the fleet were dead or seriously ill – 2,861 petty officers, seamen and soldiers. The contagion spread to the Mi'kmaq and de Ramezay's men.
By mid-October 300 of de Ramezay's troops arrived at Annapolis Royal. The French and Indian fighters spent 21 days camped in the Annapolis area waiting for the French ships to arrive with troops and siege artillery. They cut off British land communications with Minas and attempted to stop all contact between the fort and the Acadians.
On 24 October, 42 vessels left Chebucto, with almost 50 Acadian pilots from Minas. Three hospital ships set sail for France with the most critically ill. Thirteen of the ships carried 94 officers and 1,410 soldiers to conduct the siege. Two days later, as the fleet was off
Cape Negro, Nova Scotia Cape Negro is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the Barrington Municipal District of Shelburne County. Cape Sable, Nova Scotia and Cape Negro were first settled by the French who migrated from Port Royal, Nova Scotia in 1720....
La Jonquiere changed his mind. He ordered his ships back to France and dispatched orders to Annapolis Royal for de Ramzay to withdraw.
Aftermath
In response to the threat posed by the French expeditions,
Massachusetts BayThe Province of Massachusetts Bay was a crown colony in North America. It was chartered on October 7, 1691 by William and Mary, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of England and Scotland...
Governor
William ShirleyWilliam Shirley was a British colonial administrator who served twice as Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay and as Governor of the Bahamas in the 1760s...
sent Colonel
Arthur NobleArthur Noble was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the colonial militia of the British Province of Massachusetts Bay. He is best known for his role in military actions in Nova Scotia during King George's War...
and hundreds of New England soldiers to secure control over Acadia and drive de Ramezay out. One of the most startling successes of de Ramezay's campaign was his defeat of Colonel Nobel in the
Battle of Grand PréThe Battle of Grand Pré, also known as the Battle of Minas, was a battle in King George's War that took place between British and French forces near present-day Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia in the winter of 1747 during the War of the Austrian Succession...
(1747). De Ramezay attacked and defeated a superior force of Noble's militia who were billeted in houses in the Acadian settlement of Grand-Pré, in the
Minas BasinThe Minas Basin is an inlet of the Bay of Fundy and a sub-basin of the Fundy Basin located in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is known for its extremely high tides.- Geography :- Boundary :...
at the top of the
Bay of FundyThe Bay of Fundy is a bay on the Atlantic coast of North America, on the northeast end of the Gulf of Maine between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine...
.
The tragedy of the French expedition had serious implications for Acadian participation in the rest of the war. Any confidence that Acadians may have had that France would be victorious was shaken. After the failure of the expedition, Nova Scotia Governor
Paul MascarenePaul Mascarene was a Lieutenant-Governor of Nova Scotia from 1740 to 1749. He had an extensive military career throughout his life, during the events of British and French conflict that led to the Seven Years' War.-Biography:...
told Acadians to avoid all "deluding Hopes of Returning under the Dominion of France." One French officer noted that when de Ramezay was withdrawing from Annapolis Royal, the Acadians were alarmed and disappointed, feeling they were being abandoned to British retribution.
The last major engagement in the area of Annapolis Royal was during the
French and Indian WarThe French and Indian War is the common American name for the war between Great Britain and France in North America from 1754 to 1763. In 1756, the war erupted into the world-wide conflict known as the Seven Years' War and thus came to be regarded as the North American theater of that war...
in the Battle of Bloody Creek (1757).
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