page_title: 40th (the 2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot
section_title: King George's War
hierarchical_section_title: 40th (the 2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot / History / King George's War
context_page_description: The 40th (the 2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot was an infantry regiment of the British Army, raised in 1717 in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia. Under the Childers Reforms it amalgamated with the 82nd Regiment of Foot to form the Prince of Wales's Volunteers in 1881.
context_section_description: At the outbreak of King George's War, the French at Louisbourg immediately engaged in the Raid on Canso in May 1744. A flotilla containing 900 French regulars and militia.  The four poorly supplied companies of Phillips' Regiment were forced to surrender. The town was destroyed and the prisoners sent to Louisbourg. Once the regiment's officers and men were paroled in September 1744, the regiment was evacuated to Boston where they provided valuable information on the defences of Louisbourg for the British siege the following year. Governor Shirley was having difficulty raising troops requested by Mascarene and therefore he ordered the ex-Canso garrison to Annapolis Royal.
  The Newfoundland Campaign started during August 1744. Captain Robert Young, of the 44-gun ship Kinsale, lying in St. John's, Newfoundland, received intelligence that five French ships were in the port of Fishotte and resolved on despatching an armed prize to attack them. The prize was named the St. Philip, and was manned by eighty men of the Kinsale's crew, and commanded by one of her lieutenants, and accompanied by three 10-gun colonial privateers. The St. Philip succeeded, after grounding several times, in reaching the Moderate, of twelve guns and seventy-five men, which was boarded and carried ; then turning the Moderate's guns against the remaining ships, without the assistance of the privateers (who did not get into the harbour in time), compelled the whole to surrender. The St. Philip had ten killed, and thirty wounded. The loss on board the French ships was more severe. The five vessels, which had on board 18,000 quintals of fish and eighty tons of oil, mounted together sixty-six guns, and carried 342 men.
  In July 1744, three hundred Indians under command of a French priest named Le Loutre attacked Annapolis, the only British garrison in Nova Scotia. Only eighty men of Phillips' Regiment were available to meet this threat, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Paul Mascarene. Mascarene refused to surrender to Le Loutre. Le Loutre's party eventually burned a number of houses and withdrew. Following this, George II authorized the reorganization of the regiment which increased to six regiments the garrison at Annapolis, with an authorized complement of 450. Initially only seventy additional men were received. Recruitment efforts continued and Governor Shirley sent 206 recruits in February 1746.  Despite the additional manpower the regiment remained under strength.  It was at this time that Captain John Winslow first took command of a Philipp's regiment at Annapolis Royal, after being transferred from Newfoundland.  In September the enemy, this time three hundred regulars and militia with Indian support, reappeared outside the dilapidated earthworks of Annapolis Royal. After a four-week siege and lacking a train of artillery, the French withdrew from the defiant garrison.
  A force of six hundred French and Indians again attempted to take Annapolis in May 1745. This demonstration ended quickly with the French and Mi'kmaq being ordered back to help defend Louisbourg from the British.
  The only other action seen by Phillips' Regiment occurred while serving as marines and seamen. A detachment from the garrison at St. John's, Newfoundland volunteered to serve on a captured twenty-gun ship for an expedition with three privateers to Fishotte Bay. The prize entered Fishotte Bay alone and engaged a number of anchored French ships. After five hours of fighting and the loss of ten killed and thirty wounded, the ship had captured three fourteen-gun and two twelve-gun enemy ships; forty six of their crews were killed and three hundred and thirty two made prisoner. The lagging privateers entered the harbour and assisted in the destruction of French fishing stages and the removal of enemy ships and prisoners.
  By the end of the war Phillips' Regiment, after defending Britain's foothold in Nova Scotia with a skeleton complement, had its establishment raised to seventy men for each company. Men were quickly impressed in England for service in the regiment.
  Between 1746 and 174
caption: John Bradstreet - member of the 40th, captured by the French in the Raid on Canso in May 1744
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