The previous post ended with a brief account of the conquest of Louisbourg and Port la Joye by the British North Americans in 1745. We will return to that sad story shortly but first I want to introduce you to a great French cartographer, Nicholas Bellin, who produced beautiful and most elegant maps of the eastern parts of New France. Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703 – 21 March 1772) was a geographer and hydrographer. He was prodigiously clever and talented and at the age of 18 was appointed chief cartographer to the French Navy. He soon became part of a unique intellectual group called Les Philosophes – not so much philosophers…