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ANNAPOLIS Royal, in its serene beauty by the waters of Fundy, drowses upon its storied past. Ox-teams contest its streets with bustling motor cars, arching trees give shade to wide, friendly houses, and over all is the pride of seniority, for it is the oldest settlement in British America.

Before the English founded Jamestown in Virginia, before the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth, before the King James version of the Bible or the Sonnets of Shakespeare had been published, three daring Frenchmen—De Monts, Champlain, and Poutrincourt—had looked upon the land and called it a “region of plenty.” This was in 1604, and after a disastrous winter at St. Croix Island they gladly returned and founded Port Royal, across the Basin from the town of today. Here the jolly Frenchmen spent a happy winter in 1606-7, when under the leadership of Marc Lescarbot, a Paris lawyer, the Order of Good Cheer flourished. Fresh game and fish defeated scurvy, the dread enemy, while spirits were kept high by feasts, fêtes and games, reproducing in this wilderness the gay life of Paris.

The spirit of that joyous winter has been vividly preserved by William McLennan in his poem on the Frenchmen who were “beleaguered in their frail redoubt,” but who ever made merry at their dinner. The entrance of Champlain and his companions is thus described:

Three sounding knocks: the doors unfold;

With solemn step but laughing eye

Champlain with staff and chain of gold

Leads in the joyous company,

Each bearing high a mighty dish

Heaped with the spoil of flood or field:

They’ve ta’en the river’s bravest fish,

They’ve trapped the forest’s choicest yield.

Three years the Frenchmen stayed, and then the fickle Henry of Navarre cancelled the monopoly of De Monts, the Huguenot, and all packed back to France. Poutrincourt returned to Port Royal in 1610, but three years later the peaceful colony fell under the torch of Captain Argall, wandering meddlesomely northward from Jamestown.

Already the first Canadian crops had been grown here. The first mill built in North America had its wheels turned by a stream near Port Royal. The first poem written north of the Gulf of Mexico, “The Theatre of Neptune in New France,” was by Lescarbot, and it was played by these stragglers upon a stage of canoes. Sir William Alexander, under charter from James I of England, came with high hopes in 1621, built the Scotch Fort a few miles to the west, and named the region Nova Scotia, but his experiment ended in ten years when Charles I revoked the grant and ordered the colony closed. The French were soon again in possession, and D’Aulnay and La Tour fought for control. On Cromwell’s order, Major Robert Sedgwick came from Boston and took Port Royal in 1654.

Thus the pendulum swung back and forth, reflecting the wars and jealousies of Europe. After six changes the English won in 1710, and held the region throughout the final struggle for Canada and since. During the tragic expulsion of 1755 over 1,600 Acadians were sent from Annapolis. In 1721 the first court in what is now Canada was held at Fort Anne, as the defences were renamed for the Queen, thus establishing in the colony the common law of England. Thomas Chandler Haliburton, author of “Sam Slick,” and pioneer in American humour, came here in 1821 and remained for eight years in a house which still stands.

Remnants of the second and third French forts may yet be seen adjacent to the well-preserved Officers’ Quarters of Fort Anne, a rambling wooden building erected by the Duke of Kent in 1798. Generations of bitter conflict have been followed by nearly two centuries of peace and plenty. The modern plough may uncover a cannon ball, or the tide cast up a French relic, but the visitor finds a happy land of orchard and garden, white cottages and purple hills, where strife and misery are unknown.

Officers’ Quarters, Fort Anne, Annapolis Royal