Accordingly, in the middle of the night, or rather in the morning, the French came before the Fort, marched up to the gate, and demanded entrance. Mr. Barlow, who was then on the watch, told them that the Governor was asleep, but he would get the keys immediately. The French, hearing this, expected no opposition, and flocked up to the gate as close as they could stand. Barlow took the advantage of this opportunity, and instead of opening the gate, only opened two port holes, where two six-pounders stood loaded with grape shot, which were instantly fired. This discharge killed great numbers of the French, and among them the Commander, who was an Irishman.
Such an unexpected reception made the remainder retire with great precipitation; and the Master of the sloop hearing the guns, made the best of his way up to the Fort; but some of the French who lay concealed under the banks of the river killed him, and all the boat's crew.
The French retired from this place with reluctance; for some of them were heard shooting in the neighbourhood of the Fort ten days after they were repulsed; and one man in particular walked up and down the platform leading from the gate of the Fort to the Launch for a whole day. Mr. Fullarton, who was then Governor at Albany, spoke to him in French, and offered him kind quarters if he chose to accept them; but to those proposals he made no reply, and only shook his head. Mr. Fullarton then told him, that unless he would resign himself up as a prisoner, he would most assuredly shoot him; on which the man advanced nearer the Fort, and Mr. Fullarton shot him out of his chamber window. Perhaps the hardships this poor man expected to encounter in his return to Canada, made him prefer death; but his refusing to receive quarter from so humane and generous an enemy as the English, is astonishing.
[E] I have seen the remains of those houses several times; they are on the West side of the harbour, and in all probability will be discernible for many years to come.
It is rather surprising, that neither Middleton, Ellis, Christopher, Johnston, nor Garbet, who have all of them been at Marble Island, and some of them often, ever discovered this harbour; particularly the last-mentioned gentleman, who actually sailed quite round the island in a very fine pleasant day in the Summer of 1766. But this discovery was reserved for a Mr. Joseph Stephens! a man of the least merit I ever knew, though he then had the command of a vessel called the _Success_, employed in the whale-fishery; and in the year 1769, had the command of the _Charlotte_ given to him, a fine brig of one hundred tons; when I was his mate.