40th (the 2nd Somersetshire) Regiment of Foot

History

The 40th Regiment of Foot began life in August 1717 as Richard Philipps's Regiment of Foot, raised by General Richard Philipps at Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia, from independent companies already serving in North America and the West Indies. Before Father Rale's War, the Mi'kmaq raided a fishing station at Canso, Nova Scotia, in 1720 after the British built a fort there. In response, Philipps sent a company under Major Lawrence Armstrong to garrison a small fort at Canso that New England fishermen had constructed.

The Mi'kmaq kept attacking nearby ships, so in February 1723 the garrison, acting as marines alongside local fishermen, drove off the Indigenous attackers. In July 1724, sixty Mi'kmaq struck Annapolis Royal. The garrison launched a poorly planned sortie from the town's crumbling fort, losing a sergeant and a private, with an officer and three privates wounded, and were beaten back. The Mi'kmaq looted the area and left with several civilian prisoners.

From 1717 to 1743, Philipps's Regiment, stationed at Annapolis, Placentia, and Canso, shielded settlers from Indigenous raids, limited French influence, and held the British position in Atlantic Canada. When King George's War began, the French at Louisbourg launched the Raid on Canso in May 1744. A force of 900 French regulars and militia arrived by sea. The four poorly supplied companies of Philipps's Regiment had no choice but to surrender.

The French destroyed the town and sent the prisoners to Louisbourg. After the officers and men were paroled in September 1744, the regiment moved to Boston, where they gave key intelligence on Louisbourg's defenses for the British siege the next year. Governor Shirley, struggling to raise troops requested by Mascarene, ordered the former Canso garrison to proceed to Annapolis Royal.