Lieutenant-General John Henry Bastide ( – 1770) was a British army officer and military engineer who played a significant role in the early history of Nova Scotia. He was the chief engineer at both of the sieges of Louisbourg (1745 and 1758) and the siege of Minorca (1756).
Early life and career
Bastide was born about 1700, the son of a French military officer, Colonel Armand de la Bastide, a Huguenot born in Bern, Switzerland, the son of Colonel John de la Bastide. Armand became a naturalised British citizen in 1691 and was given command of Count Nassau's Regiment, later becoming Governor of the Isle of Wight. He died in 1744. Armand is Sir Derek Jacobi's seven times great uncle on his mother's side.
John Bastide joined the British Army as a boy; a notation in the Army List describes him as a ‘child’. His first commission, dated 23 August 1711, was as an ensign in Hill's Regiment. He purchased his promotion to lieutenant in the same regiment on 25 Feb. 1718 (n.s.). Between 1718 and 1720 Bastide was in Scotland, where he created several dated maps, plans and sketches. On 10 June 1719 Bastide and his regiment were at the Battle of Glenshiel. He drew a detailed plan of the battlefield and the movements of the opposing forces.
It is not certain when Bastide became an engineer but he was certainly one by 1726 as from that date to 1739 he directed "the works and fortifications at Jersey and Guernsey." The first record of Bastide found in the records of the Corps of Engineers (now Royal Engineers) is his appointment as sub-engineer on 14 February 1733. At that time engineer officers were not part of the British Army as such but, along with the artillery, were part of the Ordnance Corps, under the command of the Master General of the Ordnance. It was, however, quite normal for engineers to also hold rank within an army regiment. Regimental commissions were purchased but appointments within the corps of engineers were by seniority and could not be purchased.
In 1740 Bastide went to America as chief engineer at Annapolis Royal, then the chief town of Nova Scotia, but with responsibilities for defences and fortifications throughout Nova Scotia and New England. In 1742 he visited Canso, Nova Scotia to lay plans for refortification. The plans were never implemented but Bastide left a detailed plan of the harbour and the community. On 13 May 1743 Bastide sent a letter addressed to "My Lord Duke." Describing himself as the second lieutenant in General Cornwallis's regiment, he stated that he had received advice that he was to be exchanged from his regiment to one in Nova Scotia. He did not wish to be transferred and begged leave to resign his lieutenancy to his son or permission to sell it in order to provide some security for his family. He continued in his engineer duties being promoted to Engineer Extraordinary on 3 July 1742, Engineer in Ordinary on 8 March 1744 and Sub-Director sometime later in 1744.
King George's War
Siege of Louisbourg (1745) Prior to France's declaration of war (War of the Austrian Succession) against Great Britain (15 March 1744), Bastide inspected and reported upon the necessary measures to improve the defences of Fort William and Mary at New Castle, New Hampshire. In 1743 and 1744 he assisted in the construction of fortifications at Castle William in Boston harbour, Marblehead, Cape Ann, and Falmouth in Casco Bay, for which in April 1745, Massachusetts granted him £140 for his services. As war became imminent Bastide returned to Annapolis Royal to bolster its defences. With time and resources at a premium Bastide abandoned plans to erect new fortifications and concentrating on putting "the old ones into the best repair they are capable of."
In May 1744, before many of the English settlers in Nova Scotia had heard of the declaration of war, French forces from Louisbourg, Nova Scotia, attacked and captured Canso. The New Englanders feared for their safety and under the leadership of Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, a plan was prepared for the attack and capture of Louisbourg. Bastide, who had gained considerable knowledge of Louisbourg, was intimately involved in the planning and preparation during 1744 and early 1745, but by the time the expedition, under the command of William Pepperrell, was launched in April 1745, Bastide was back in Annapolis Royal which was itself under siege by a force of about 300 French colonials and Indians led by Paul and Joseph Marin. However, the fortress, helped by Bastide's recent improvements to the defences, held out and on 24 May the French, on hearing that Louisbourg was under siege, withdrew.