"Amy," said Martine, "I know I'm very stupid, but I'd really like to know where Port Royal ends and Fort Anne begins. Some one told me that this is really Fort Anne, but you always speak of it as Port Royal; so just to gratify my curiosity I'm willing to listen to a little more history."
"Then I'll give you as much, or rather as little, as I can to make you understand some of the happenings at this Fort in the early days. I am sorry that I cannot go at all into details about the many sieges and expeditions against the Fort in the seventeenth century. The quarrels of D'Aunay and Charles de La Tour form a most exciting series of episodes, and you must read them at length in Parkman or some other history. Although theirs was not warfare between French and English, La Tour was a Huguenot, and in a general way the English were on his side. In fact, he once came down to Boston and interested Winthrop and others in his cause. In the end I suppose La Tour may be considered to have been the conqueror; at least, he survived D'Aunay, and later married for his second wife D'Aunay's widow. Port Royal was captured by Cromwell's fleet in 1654, and a few years later, in the reign of Charles II, was given back to France. In 1690, when England and France were again at war, De Menneval, the governor of the Fort, had to surrender to Sir William Phipps, and the account of this expedition you will surely read sometime, for Phipps was a New Englander and his career most interesting."
"The New Englanders seem to have had a special spite against Acadia," said Martine; "so it isn't strange, Priscilla, that you have inherited part of it."
"Oh, no, I haven't; only if I must choose I naturally prefer what is English to what is French."
"After all that Phipps thought he had accomplished," continued Amy, "Acadia was again handed back to France; but I will pass over other attacks to remind you of what you have doubtless read many times in your school histories, that, when the Treaty of Utrecht settled the wars between Queen Anne and Louis XIV, Acadia was given to the English. Since that time the fort has been Fort Anne and the town Annapolis."
"It's no wonder," said Martine, "that the Acadians hardly knew whom to obey, when they'd been handed over from one side to another so often."
"This does account for much of the misunderstanding that finally led to their deportation. They trusted too implicitly in the French King, and for a long time vainly hoped that he would conquer the English and make them again his subjects."
Hardly had Amy finished when a boyish voice was heard crying, "Good-morning, good-morning. Is it really true that you're starting North to-day?"
"No, not to-day; we have still a day or two left before we set out for Grand Pré; we are going over to see your mother this afternoon."
"I'm glad of that," responded Balfour, "for I'm to have a day off, or rather an afternoon, and I wanted to be sure of your plans."