Just north of the British Officers’ quarters building is this 12 pounder with a nice green patina and a pile of iron balls beside it. While it has the logo of King Louis XIV, who died in 1715, embossed on the cannon, along with other lettering, is what appears to be the date
1738. This appears to have been another cannon of the French army, but given that they lost control of Fort Anne in 1710 the 1738 date is a bit of an anachronism we can't explain.
Bronze 12-pounder 6-cwt Smoothbore Muzzleloading Gun, weight 6-0-17 (689 lbs), 3.75-inch, (Serial No. 278) above the cascabel, “LA RUGISSANT” (the roaring one). (No. 36) on left trunnion, (P over 671) on right trunnion. The gun is also marked with the device of King Louis XIV (the “Sun King”), with his motto, NEC PLURIBUS IMPAR (Not unequal to many). This gun is resting on wood supports South of the former Officer's Quarters.
From Silverhawk Author
FORT ANNE
Fort Anne was first the location of Charles Fort, settled in 1629-32 by Scottish settlers. Acadian settlers began to arrive in the area in 1636, and the site came under French rule from successive forts on the site until 1710. From 1713 to 1749, the British governed Nova Scotia from the fort, renamed Annapolis Royal. During its history under the French, the fort was captured by the British in 1654, 1690 and, for the final time, in 1710. The expulsion of the French from Nova Scotia, known as the "Grand Derangement", in 1755, was organized from the site, as were the importation and settlement of New England Planters and United Empire Loyalists.
In 1917 Fort Anne was declared a Dominion Park, Canada’s first administered national historic park. In 1920 it was designated Canada's first National Historic Site under the new National Historic Sites program which replaced the previous National Historic Parks program.
Today the site contains remnants of the Vauban fort (1702-8), including an underground powder magazine, a dry-stone retaining wall from 1760, shoreline cribwork from the 1740s, the Queen’s wharf ruins from the 1740s and the British Officers’ quarters, built 1797-9 and reconstructed 1934-5. Adjacent to the fort site are an Acadian cemetery; and a British garrison cemetery. Many old cannons still point out to sea as they would have done 250 years ago, in anticipation of the arrival of an enemy flotilla of warships.