Under the French Regime 29

of Louisbourg.

In 1726, two years after the departure of the employees of the Compagnie de l’Isle Saint Jean, the French government appointed Jacques d’Espiet de Pensens as Commandant of the Island. He was serving on fle Royale at the time of his appointment and was not particularly pleased about his transfer. Elderly and in delicate health, he had no desire to abandon the comfort of his apartments in Louis- bourg for an isolated and sparsely populated colony. Nevertheless, he obeyed and made his way to Port LaJoie with about thirty soldiers, a chaplain and a surgeon. In his eleven years as commanding officer on the Island, de Pensens did not spend much time at Port LaJoie. He preferred to spend the winter in the comfort of Louisbourg rather than in the old headquarters of the Compagnie de l’'Isle Saint Jean. The living conditions were rather appalling, as he wrote to the Minister of the Navy in 1728:

I have the honour of bringing to your attention, Sire, the impossibility of staying on fle Saint Jean unless, in the future, your Highness has the kindness to order the construction of some dwellings. Since the casemates left by the Comte de Saint Pierre’s company are in total disrepair, the soldiers and | constantly run the risk of being crushed by the buildings in which we are lodged and which I have had repaired so that they could last until now. (TR)'®

No doubt the complaints of the Commandant were justified: his colony received very little help from the government. In 1729, he complained that he had been refused the boat and the shallop required for his own transportation around the Island and for the transport of the effects belonging to the garrison?’. In November 1730, he in- formed his minister that more than half of the rifles of the garrison were defective and that the hospital was lacking in virtually everything, even firewood”.

During a visit to France in 1732, de Pensens put pressure on government authorities. He became the King’s Lieutenant, an appoint- ment he had been coveting for a long time. He was promised funds for the construction of new quarters for himself and his troops, and a new Royal storehouse. De Pensens made futile requests that the garrison at Port LaJoie be augmented”. It was not until after his departure in 1737 that a reinforcement of forty soldiers was sent’.

Louis Duchambon replaced de Pensens. He was chosen because of his popularity among the Acadians whom the authorities were still