Siege of Annapolis Royal ( 1745 ) The Siege of Annapolis Royal in 1745 involved the third of four attempts by the French , along with their Acadian and native allies , to regain the capital of Nova Scotia / Acadia , Annapolis Royal , during King George ' s War . During the siege William Pote was taken prisoner and wrote one of the rare captivity narratives that exist from Nova Scoia and Acadia . Historical context . The conquest of Acadia by Great Britain began with the 1710 capture of the provincial capital , Port Royal ( which the British renamed Annapolis Royal . In the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht , France formally ceded Acadia to Britain . However , there was disagreement about the provincial boundaries , and some Acadians also resisted British rule . During King George ' s War , the French began to retake what the British called Nova Scotia with an assault on the capital . There were only two British outposts in the colony : Canso and Annapolis Royal . The French under the command of Devier immediately defeated Canso and then made an unsuccessful attempt on the capital . The French made another attempt on the capital the following year . Siege . Within days of New England starting to lay siege to Louisbourg , French officer Paul Marin de la Malgue led 200 troops , and hundreds of Mi ' kmaq on a three - week siege against the British at Annapolis Royal . This force was twice the size of French officer Duvivier ' s expedition against Annapolis Royal the previous year . During the siege the English destroyed their own officers fences , houses and buildings that the attackers might be able to use . Marin captured two schooners and took one prisoner . The siege was ended when Marin was recalled to assist with defending the French during the Siege of Louisbourg ( 1745 ) . Consequences . During the Siege , the Mi ' kmaq and Maliseet took prisoner William Pote and some of Gorham ' s Rangers . ( John Gorham himself was not at Annapolis because he was fighting alongside his father in the Siege of Louisbourg ) . During his captivity , Pote wrote one of the most important captivity narratives from Acadia and Nova Scotia . While at Cobequid , Pote reported that an Acadian said that the French soldiers should have " left their [ the English ] carcasses behind and brought their skins . " The following year , among other places , Pote was taken to the Maliseet village Aukpaque on the Saint John River . While at the village , Mi ' kmaq from Nova Scotia arrived and , on July 6 , 1745 , tortured him and a Mohawk ranger from Gorham ' s company named Jacob , as retribution for the killing of their family members by Ranger John Gorham during the Siege of Annapolis Royal ( 1744 ) . On July 10 , Pote witnessed another act of revenge when the Mi ' kmaq tortured a Mohawk ranger from Gorham ' s company at Meductic . Martin was not able to assist Louisbourg because the New Englanders stopped him in the Naval battle off Tatamagouche . Grand Pre had been the staging ground for the French and Mi ' kmaq sieges of Annapolis Royal . This led Gorham to demand to take control of Grand Pre after the first siege in 1744 and again after the second . The French made one final attempt with the Duc d ’ Anville Expedition to regain Annapolis Royal . References . Endnotes Secondary Sources