The see-saw between French and English was once more to incline in the English favor as regards Acadia. The cession of this peninsula to the French had always been looked on with disfavor by the New England colonists, because it gave their hereditary enemies a secure base from which to send out privateering expeditions against their shipping. In 1654, Cromwell the Protector dispatched a force to ensure the subjugation of the Dutch on the Island of Manhattan. Peace with Holland was concluded by England before this purpose was effected, and it was then determined to turn these arms to the reconquest of Acadia. An expedition was accordingly fitted out secretly in Massachusetts and dispatched upon its mission. The French forts on the Penobscot and at St. John were speedily reduced. Le Borgne was at Port Royal with one hundred and fifty men but he attempted little resistance and the post once more came into English possession.
Until 1667 Port Royal was in the hands of the English, and then by the Treaty of Breda the whole of Acadia was returned to the French. During their occupancy the English had spent large sums repairing the fortifications in Acadia under their control, and in this undertaking the importance of Port Royal was duly recognized.
For the next generation the French made Port Royal their base, and the place acquired an evil reputation with the English because of the marauding sea expeditions which proceeded from out of there. Finally, in 1690, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts raised a levy and empowered Sir William Phips to go against the ancient stronghold. This doughty gentleman was successful in his mission and the port was in English hands again—this time hands of destruction.
After the departure of their enemies the French rebuilt Port Royal and it became, once more, a busy shipping point and the haunt of privateers. It is not difficult to-day to appreciate the fine strategic value of Port Royal, set at the head of its beautiful landlocked basin, but it is difficult, to-day, as the river now stands, to appreciate how vessels of any burthen could go up to its wharves. But at that time, doubtless, the river had not filled up to the degree that it has to-day.
In 1704 and again in 1705, the pertinacious New Englanders went upon futile expeditions against Port Royal, each time being driven off without much loss and each time evincing a singular lack of spirit in their enterprise, a lack of spirit all the more remarkable when one considers the undertakings which they faced and carried through at other times in their history. The taking of Port Royal seems to have become a sort of obsession with them—a theme for an idle hour, a pet worry which they would take up when all other worries failed them. Finally, in 1710, before the onslaught of a combined force of Her Majesty Queen Anne’s soldiery and New England militia, Port Royal fell to the English for the last time, bravely and gallantly fighting against overwhelming odds. Its spirited commandant, M. Subercase, with a famished army of one hundred and fifty men, marched out through the ranks of three thousand five hundred enemies and the red flag of England was raised where the white one of France had flown. Port Royal was renamed Annapolis in honor of the English sovereign, and Colonel Vetch, with four hundred and fifty men, occupied the fort. Though it was endangered by French arms several times thereafter, the little fort was never again out of English possession.
The sod ramparts of the fort have been carefully maintained and are to-day the cherished possession of Annapolis—or Annapolis Port Royal, as its inhabitants, making an odd mixture of its names, prefer to call it. From them one may gaze down the placid little river over a scene very like that upon which its French and English commanders looked on their separate turns and different generations. It is difficult really to visualize the events through which the little fort has passed, but if one considers that its history goes as far back beyond the days of the American Revolution as the beginning of the twentieth century comes this side of the Revolution, one begins to perceive how big is its historical background as events go in America.
The officers’ quarters,—a quaint, sturdy, low building,—and the magazine are still standing in the fort at Port Royal, both very ancient and very suggestive edifices, neither one as ancient as the walls of the little fort.