BOURG, dit Belle-Humeur, ALEXANDRE, notary, king’s attorney; b. 1671 at Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal, N.S.), son of François Bourg and Marguerite Boudrot; d. 1760 at Richibucto (N.B.).

Alexandre Bourg settled about 1694 at Grand Pré, Nova Scotia, where he married Marguerite Melanson, the daughter of Pierre Melanson, dit La Verdure, and Marguerite Mius d’Entremont; of this marriage at least 16 children were born. Immediately after the conquest of Acadia by the British in 1710 he was appointed notary for Minas Basin. On several occasions he was chosen to represent the Acadians of his region in dealing with the government at Annapolis Royal. Thus he was among the delegates sent by the Acadians of Minas to Annapolis in 1720 at the request of Governor Richard Philipps after the latter had tried to have them take the oath of allegiance. After the same Acadians had refused to take the oath in 1727 Bourg was called to Annapolis to explain their conduct.

In December 1730 Governor Philipps granted Alexandre Bourg a commission as king’s attorney for Minas, Pisiquid (Windsor, N.S.), Cobequid (near Truro, N.S.), and Chignecto, with authority to receive moneys due and annuities and to handle all cases of seizure of property and escheat. In 1731 he was accused of negligence in his accounts, and in September 1737 the lieutenant governor, Lawrence Armstrong, dismissed him from his functions. He was replaced by François Mangeant, dit Saint-Germain. On 27 May 1740, Paul Mascarene, Armstrong’s successor, who considered Bourg an old acquaintance, reinstated him as notary and tax-collector.

In 1742 Bourg and some settlers from Minas helped in finding belongings stolen by Indians from an English merchant vessel near Grand Pré. In 1744 Bourg was again accused of negligence in carrying out his duties and was even accused of having collaborated, along with his son-in-law Joseph Leblanc, dit Le Maigre, with François Du Pont* Duvivier’s troops during the invasion of Nova Scotia; on 17 December Bourg was suspended from office. He was taken to Annapolis Royal with Joseph Le Blanc and subjected to a close interrogation by Mascarene and the council. As punishment his office as notary at Minas was taken from him for good.

Bourg may have left Acadia at the beginning of the 1750s when several thousand Acadians emigrated to Île Royale (Cape Breton Island) and Île Saint-Jean (Prince Edward Island). In any event we meet him again in 1752 at Port-Toulouse (St Peters, N.S.), at the home of Joseph Le Blanc, who had been living there for three years. Bourg escaped the deportation of the Acadians in 1755 and the evacuation of Île Royale after the British capture of Louisbourg in 1758 [see Wolfe]. He seems to have taken refuge at Richibucto, where he died at 89 years of age.

C. J. d’Entremont