Annapolis Royal

“ After that he and the rest of the Indians will take you through the woods to Port Royal, which they call Annapolis Royal. Here you will be safe from Cazeneau until such time as may suit you to go back to Boston. Annapolis Royal is about twenty-four leagues from this place, and you can easily go there in two days."
Claude listened to all this without a word; and, after the priest had ended, he remained silent for some time, with his eyes fixed on the floor.
"The Indians will be armed," said the priest, "and will have a rifle and a sword for you. So you need have no trouble about anything." ”

“ From the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, when Acadia was ceded to the Crown of Great Britain, to the year 1749, no progress had been made by the British in colonizing the country. The inhabitants consisted of a few thousand Acadian peasants, scattered around the shores of the Basin of Minas, Chignecto and the Valley of Annapolis. The Governor resided at Annapolis Royal, a small fortified port, with a garrison of two or three hundred regular troops, and was, in a great measure, dependent on New England for his necessary supplies. ”

“ ANNAPOLIS ROYAL.
One of Des Barres’ coast views (in Harvard College library) .
The key of the fort at Annapolis, taken at this time, is in the cabinet of the Mass. Hist. Society. (Cf. Catal. Cab. M. H. Soc., p. 112; Proceedings, i. 101.)
Col. William Dudley under date of Nov. 15, 1710, sent to the Board of Trade a communication covering the journal of Col. Nicholson during the siege, with correspondence appertaining, and these papers from the Record Office, London, are printed in the Nova Scotia Hist. Soc. Collections, i. p. 59, as (p. 64) is also a journal from the Boston News-Letter of Nov. ”

“ Immediately after the declaration of war Paul Mascarene set to work to repair the defences of Annapolis Royal. The French inhabitants at first showed every readiness to assist him, but they retired to their habitations when the Indians, to the number of about three hundred fighting men, appeared before the fort. Among the leaders of the savages was young Alexander le Borgne de Bellisle, who himself had Indian blood in his veins, being the son of Anastasie de St. Castin. The Indians failed in their attack and retired to await the arrival of troops from Louisbourg under Du Vivier. ”

“ One post here, however, possesses a singular interest in the eyes of the good people of Boston. It is marked on the map by the name of Annapolis, once the French Port Royal, but now the only English post of any consequence in all Nova Scotia. Here resides the handful of Englishmen who claim to rule the province. But the government is a mockery, and the French set it at defiance. If England wishes to assert her power here, she must have a far different force in the country from the handful of ragged and ill-armed soldiers who mount guard on the tumble-down forts at Annapolis. ”

“ Pennsylvania raised fifty thousand pounds, and Massachusetts sent near eight thousand men to aid in driving the French from the northern border. Acadia's time had come. Though the descendants of the Breton peasants, who dated their settlement from 1604, had since the Peace of Utrecht nominally belonged to England, yet their sentiments and mode of life had been unaltered; Port Royal had been little changed by calling it Annapolis, and the simple, old-fashioned Catholics loved their homes with all the tenacity of six unbroken generations. ”

“ In fancy, primitive battles are enacted again about the quadrangle of Port Royal—royal in the eyes of the French for the beauty of its environment—battles in which the flags of England and France were alternately victorious throughout a hundred years. A fort near the site occupied now by Annapolis was set up in the year 1643. In 1680 there was a small settlement adjoining. Poutrincourt and his friends had chosen not to build there because "too far within the harbour." ”

“ Mich' Masson—whose home, which served him best as a place to stay away from, was in the village of Grand Pré, far up on the Basin of Minas—had been Jean's close friend since early boyhood, in the days before Port Royal town had been captured by the English and found its name changed to Annapolis. He was a daring adventurer, hunter, woods-ranger, an implacable partisan of the French cause, and just now deeply interested in the traffic between Acadie and the new French fortress city of Louisburg—a traffic which the English Governor was angrily determined to break up. ”

“ The middies of the Naval Academy no doubt believe that they had their quarters secure. The Massachusetts boys are satisfied that they first took the town in charge. And so they did.
But the Seventh took it a little more. Not, of course, from its loyal men, but for its loyal men, — for loyal Maryland, and for the Union.
Has anybody seen Annapolis? It is a picturesque old place, sleepy enough, and astonished to find itself wide-awaked by a war, and obliged to take responsibility and share for good and ill in the movement of its time. ”

“ The country about there is occupied by many comfortable-looking, square-built, old English houses, built by military people in the days when Annapolis was a garrison town and the capital of Nova Scotia. There is a fine field for writers of imaginative literature in the early and even the later story of Annapolis. Of a pleasant afternoon in September there is no pleasanter drive to be enjoyed than that along the road from Bridgetown to Granville Ferry, on the right bank of the Annapolis river, when the tide is in. All along the highway is a succession of orchards of apples and plums. ”

“ It is certainly a strange thing that the part of America which was originally British should now have passed away from British rule, and the only British America now should be that which was originally French.
“Many years passed away, and no colonies were formed. At last, at nearly the same time, the French and English both began. The French, however, were first. They came over, and in 1606 founded Port Royal—now Annapolis, you know. A year or two after, the English founded Jamestown, and the French Quebec. ”

“ Conducted into the hall of the legislature, which was filled with persons of distinction and soldiers of the revolution, he was led to a seat, where he listened to a discourse from the mayor in the name of the city. In his reply, he alluded to the fact, that Annapolis had been the scene of events for ever memorable in the annals of the United States; it was within its walls that Washington had laid down a power conferred on him by the nation; and the inhabitants of that city had always been worthy, by their patriotism, of being the witnesses and participators of this noble act. ”

“ At half-past seven we take up our line of march, pass out of the charming grounds of the Academy, and move through the quiet, rusty, picturesque old town. It has a romantic dulness—Annapolis—which deserves a parting compliment.
Although we deem ourselves a fine-looking set, although our belts are blanched with pipe-clay and our rifles shine sharp in the sun, yet the townspeople stare at us in a dismal silence. They have already the air of men quelled by a despotism. None can trust his neighbor. If he dares to be loyal, he must take his life into his hands. ”

“ Baltimore, a town on a similar inlet from the bay, about thirty miles hence, being free from this plague, (by having a great proportion of fresh water from the Patapsico in it's harbour) has drawn all the trade from the capital: the Annapolians have now but one square-rigged vessel belonging to their port, while their rivals have many hundreds, and drive a brisk trade to the four quarters of the globe.
Annapolis is whimsically laid out, the streets verging from each other, like rays from a centre. It is still the seat of government ”

“ There is no place in Europe, devoted to naval training, which has anything like the space, the buildings and material, and the equable climate which the Annapolis school possesses. Although the country is flat, the fine expanses of water, and the wealth of foliage, give the situation great attractions, while the old and historic town of Annapolis, so connected with the Colonial period and the Revolution, retains its curious plan, and its old church, court-house, and residences, much as they were when Washington resigned his commission. ”

“ The city of Annapolis is old and quaint. Unlike most of our American capitals, it gives a stranger the impression of having been finished for centuries, and one would imagine that the inhabitants are quite too contented to have any idea of progress or improvement. ”

“ That’s where George Washington—first in peace, first in war, and first in the hearts of his countrymen—laid down his victorious sword without any one asking him, and retired amid the applause of the civilized world.” This flight I am sure was the old man’s treasured relic of school-boy days, and I’m not sure he did not give it to me three times over. Annapolis looks very well from the river side. The approach is guarded by some very poor earthworks and one small fort. ”

“ Our party, including soldiers and a few gentlemen who went to look over the country north of the bay, with a view to getting some of the many farmers who had come from Boston to settle upon it, numbered, in all, twenty-seven persons.
Somewhat tired from the long journey on horseback over a road that was exceedingly rough, we finally reached Annapolis. The country about here was partly settled, and seemed to be remarkably fertile. There were wide, rich marshes, orchards, and many well-cultivated farms, occupied mainly by settlers who had come in from the American Colonies before the war. ”

“ If Grice's story is true there is surely a bad pair of midshipmen here, and we must get them and dismiss them."
[227]
CHAPTER XIX THE KIDNAPPERS
Annapolis was full of excitement. It always is at this time of year, and though the town is old, and though graduation scenes have been rehearsed for more than sixty years, still the play is always fresh; young lives are about to go out and do their battle in the world, and friends come to applaud them and to spend a few days with them, and to wish them Godspeed. And so visitors by thousands poured into the ancient city ”

“ It is disappointing that there should be no good place to “sup and lie”—to resuscitate, a rather poetical archaism—in Annapolis, no snug old tavern with the king’s arms upon a sign-board still swinging over its door. And Annapolis, besides, is most inaccessible and expensive to reach; yet every student of American Renaissance should contrive to make, at least, one pilgrimage thither during his lifetime to gain, if possible, a better idea of the most characteristic development his national school of architecture has seen. ”

“ Many months had passed away, spring had come again, and the fair city of Annapolis lay in a mass of flowers. The vivid green of the old trees cast a delightful shade over all, tempting one to stroll through the quiet streets and byways, past the moss-grown walls, the old-fashioned gardens, buried in roses, and the stately, proud mansions of many of Maryland's best and bravest.
I was standing on a step and above me stood Mistresses Polly and Betsy Johnson, who were railing at me now that I no longer wore a uniform and was simply a plain member of the Legislature. ”

“ If the rural population did not give us a bastard imitation of Lexington and Concord, as we tried to gain Washington, all Pluguglydom would treat us à la Plugugly somewhere near the junction of the Annapolis and Baltimore and Washington Railroad. ”

“ Annapolis might be said to be London on a small scale,—but on a very small scale. The historian of the future need look no farther than our houses (if any remain) , to be satisfied that we had more than the necessities of existence. The Maryland aristocrat with his town place and his country place was indeed a parallel of the patrician at home. He wore his English clothes, drove and rode his English horses, and his coaches were built in Long Acre. His heavy silver service came from Fleet Street, and his claret and Champagne and Lisbon and Madeira were the best that could be bought or smuggled. ”

“ Annapolis, the capital of Anne Arundel county, and the seat of the government of Maryland, is situated at the mouth of the Severn river, about two miles from its entrance into Chesapeak bay, thirty miles south of Baltimore, and forty north-east of the city of Washington. It is a place of little note in the commercial world; but being in a pleasant situation, and commanding a beautiful prospect of the Chesapeak, and the shore on the other side of the bay, it is a very pleasant residence. The houses are built of brick, and for the most part large and elegant, denoting great wealth. ”

“ Annapolis is, with the sole exception of its sister academy at West Point, the most typically democratic and American school of learning and preparation that there is in the entire country. Men go there from every State, from every walk of life, professing every creed—the chance of entry being open to all who perfect themselves in the necessary studies and who possess the necessary moral and physical qualities. There each man enters on his merits, stands on his merits, and graduates into a service where only his merit will enable him to be of value. ”

“ Dan stared, then went off, pondering.
Belle Meade, in her Gridley home, received one day a large, square, thin package. She saw the mark of the Annapolis express office, and hastily snatched up scissors to cut the string. Out came a huge photograph. ”