Daniel d'Auger de Subercase
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Daniel d'Auger de Subercase (February 12, 1661 – November 20, 1732) was a naval officer and the French governor of Colony of Newfoundland, Newfoundland and later Acadia. Subercase was baptised a Protestant to Jean Daughter, a rich merchant and bourgeois who had purchased several noble estates, including the lay abbey of Subercase, near Asson. He served about 10 years in the land forces and in 1684 was a captain in the Régiment de Bretagne before he joined the navy and sailed for Quebec City, Quebec. No sooner had he landed in 1687 than he set off with his contingent on a campaign against the Senecas. In 1693 he was named lieutenant-commander, garrison adjutant and adjutant general. On 1 April 1702 he succeeded Monic as governor of Plaisance, Newfoundland and Labrador, Plaisance, arriving at his post in 1703 during the early years of Queen Anne's War. He immediately attacked Ferryland, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ferryland where he learned from prisoners of a planned English attack on Plaisance with a fleet of thirty-three sail from St. John's under the command of Admiral John Graydon. He immediately set the town's defenses in order and discouraged the attack with the help of two French warships. During the fall of 1704 he organized a series of attacks against English outposts on Newfoundland. With a party of one hundred reinforcements from Canada and three hundred and fifty of his own men, this campaign resulted in the temporary capture of Bay Bulls, Newfoundland and Labrador, Bay Bulls and Petty Harbour, Newfoundland and Labrador, Petty Harbour in January 1705 and a Siege of St. John's, failed siege of the main English settlement at St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, St. John's. Unable to subdue the fort they set out to destroying settlements in Conception Bay and Trinity Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, Trinity Bay and succeeded in destroying every colony, with the exception of Carbonear Island. The expedition took 1,200 prisoners, and boasted the destruction of 40 cannon, 2,000 shallops, and pillaged 2,600 livres in cash. Subercase estimated that, although St. John's remained intact, the total losses inflicted on the enemy was 4 million livres. Subercase made full use of the following lull in aggression to rebuild the fortifications at Plaisance, improve morale, and generally improve the living conditions of the residents. In 1705 he was made a knight of the order of Saint-Louis and became the governor of Acadia in April 1706. He successfully led the outnumbered defense of Habitation at Port-Royal, Port Royal against Siege of Port Royal (1707), two failed sieges in 1707, leading several sallies himself and having his own horse killed below him in one skirmish. The governor of Boston was not prepared to accept defeat and on 5 Oct 1710 General Francis Nicholson's fleet appeared before Port-Royal and began the Siege of Port Royal (1710), Siege of Port Royal. The fleet comprised a landing force of 2,000 men (3,400 according to Subercase), made up of one regiment of English regulars and four regiments of militiamen raised by Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, and carried in 36 vessels, seven of which were warships. Subercase had fewer than 300 men to set against them. After a few days of defense, Subercase surrendered the partially ruined and under provisioned Port Royal, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, Port-Royal to the Kingdom of Great Britain, British, expressing to the English commander his hope of returning to pay him a visit the following spring. Subercase, accused of negligence by some officers and reprimanded by New France governor Pierre de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnial, Vaudreuil, was summoned before a court martial at Rochefort, but rapidly acquitted. In 1711 he was offered to be sent to serve at Quebec under Vaudreuil where he could formulate a plan to retake Port Royal while continuing to be paid his salary as governor of Acadia. Subercase refused in disgust and two years later the Treaty of Utrecht was signed ending aggression between the French and English and ceding Acadia and Newfoundland to England for good, thus making Subercase the last governor of French Acadia. Subercase retired and returned to France to live on his estates in Béarn. He continued to draw a captain's pension of 600 livres a year until he died on 20 Nov 1732 at Cannes. A ledger-stone marks his grave in the church of this village.


See also

*List of governors of Acadia * List of Newfoundland and Labrador lieutenant-governors, Governors of Newfoundland * List of people of Newfoundland and Labrador


References


External links


Biography at Government House ''The Governorship of Newfoundland and Labrador''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Subercase, Daniel dAuger de People of Queen Anne's War 1661 births 1732 deaths People from Orthez Governors of Plaisance Governors of Acadia French Navy officers French Protestants