The location Daniel chose was strategic in the most basic sense: the entrance to St. Ann's Bay is a narrow passage, easily defended, with deep water and a sheltered harbor beyond. Fort Sainte Anne was occupied from 1639 to 1641, a brief tenure that nonetheless established French presence on Cape Breton. The fort itself was modest, but its placement mattered. Over the following decades, two additional fortifications rose nearby: Simon Denys Fort, which operated from 1650 to 1659, and Fort Dauphin, which would become far more significant. The site at Englishtown was not just a military outpost. It was a gateway -- the kind of natural harbor that could support a settlement, a fishery, and eventually a colonial administration.

After Queen Anne's War ended in 1713 and France lost mainland Nova Scotia to Britain under the Treaty of Utrecht, the French needed a new seat of power for their remaining territory. They chose Cape Breton, which they called Île Royale, and they chose the site of Fort Sainte Anne for its capital. French officer Jean-Baptiste Hertel de Rouville and others established Fort Dauphin in 1713, making Englishtown the administrative center of the entire island. De Rouville played a central role in the early settlement, dividing his time between Englishtown from 1719 to 1722 and St. Peter's from 1713 to 1718. He was buried at Fort Dauphin when he died in 1722. Philippe de Pastour de Costebelle, another key colonial administrator, also died at the fort in 1717. Fort Dauphin served as capital until the French decided to build their grand fortress at Louisbourg, shifting the center of colonial power to a site they judged more defensible.

Fort Dauphin's story ends in fire. In 1745, a New England fleet under the command of Commodore Edward Tyng sailed against Louisbourg in one of the most audacious military campaigns of the colonial era. Tyng led 13 armed vessels and about 90 transports, and before the siege of Louisbourg itself began, he turned his attention to the former capital. In June 1745, his forces participated in the capture of the French warship Vigilant and then moved on Port Dauphin -- the name by which Englishtown was then known. The destruction was thorough: 40 houses and an equal number of vessels were burned. The settlement that had once served as the capital of Île Royale was reduced to nothing. The Siege of Louisbourg succeeded shortly afterward, giving New England one of its greatest military victories, but for the people of Port Dauphin the war was already over.

Fort Sainte Anne is now a National Historic Site, though what remains above ground is modest. The site at Englishtown encompasses the traces of nearly 120 years of French colonial presence: Daniel's original 1629 fort, the later constructions of Simon Denys and the Fort Dauphin complex, and the scars left by Tyng's bombardment. Englishtown today is a quiet community on the shore of St. Ann's Bay, connected to the rest of Cape Breton by a small cable ferry that crosses the narrows Daniel once chose for its defensibility. The harbor is still deep, the passage still narrow. Standing at the water's edge, it is easy to see why a sea captain in 1629 looked at this spot and decided to stay -- and why, for over a century afterward, the French and English kept coming back to fight for the same piece of ground.