PRINT SOURCE: Thomas Raddall Fonds, Correspondence. From Thomas Raddall to Dr. N. A. M. MacKenzie, 14 July 1966. MS-2-202 43.45.
Subject HeadingsAfter a negative review of Raddall's novel Hangman's Beach was published in the July 2nd issue of The Globe Magazine, Senator Norman MacKenzie, distinguished retired university professor and proud Nova Scotian, writes a counter opinion in a letter to the editor of The Globe and Mail. Having been sent a copy of MacKenzie's letter by a friend, T. H. Raddall writes Dr. MacKenzie to thank him for the support. Picking up on MacKenzie's point that his historical research was sound, Raddall relates the key historical facts and people he had based his story on. He concludes by quoting Macaulay's famous words about history being stranger than fiction.
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July 14, 1966 Dr. N.A.M.MacKenzie,The Senate, Ottawa, Canada. Dear Doctor MacKenzie, My old friend Harvey Crowell has forwarded the copy of your letter to the Globe and Mail, and -- whatever it did to the critic -- it certainly warmed my heart. I had not seen the review,1 but a long exper- ience has taught me that most "reviewers" read very little of the books at which they throw their paper darts, and this you have pointed out. All of the warships mentioned in my book were actual ships, the fight between "La Bonne Citoyenne" and "La Furieuse" actually took place, and "La Furieuse" was towed to Halifax as a prize. The floggings and hangings in the harbor actually happened, on all the ships named -- and Peter McNab2 and his men really did abolish the gibbets at last by sawing them down and throwing them in the sea. My chief French character "Cascamond" is to a great extent a creation of my own fancy, but even he is based on a real man, Francois Lambert Bourneuf,3 one of the crew of "La Furieuse", badly wounded in the fight, and afterwards a prisoner at Melville Island. He escaped and made a perilous boat voyage along our south-west coast in search of the Acadian settlements. Landing to get food at Port l'Hebert, a few miles from Liver- pool, he was arrested by a sergeant of the local militia, Peter Spearwater, and taken to the jail at Shelburne. After some time there he got away again, and made his way through the woods to Pubnico, where he got a job as schoolmaster and married an Acadian girl. Eventually Bourneuf became a prosperous merchant and shipbuilder. In 1843 he was elected to the Nova Scotia House of Assembly, and continued to hold his seat until 1859. During part of this time one of his fellow members in the Assembly was Peter Spearwater, who sat in the House for Shelburne Township 1836-1847, the very same man4 who had arrested Bourneuf as an escaped P.O.W. in 1812! As Macaulay5 said: "So much is history stranger than fiction, and so true is it that nature has caprices which art dares not imitate." There are many descendants of Bourneuf in western Nova Scotia to this day. He left an unfinished autobiography, describing these affairs. It was printed in Volume 27, Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society.6 Forgive this typing, please, I've never been able to teach my fingers to follow quickly and exactly the lettering in my mind! With my deep appreciation and good wishes. |
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