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Title: The Great Fortress:
   A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760
   [Vol. 8 of "The Chronicles of Canada"]
Author: Wood, William Charles Henry (1864-1947)
Illustrator: Highmore, Joseph (1692-1780)
Illustrator: Jefferys, Charles William (1869-1951)
Illustrator: Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)
Illustrator: Smibert, John (1688-1751)
Date of first publication: 1915
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   Toronto: Glasgow, Brook & Company, 1920
Date first posted: 1 July 2009
Date last updated: 1 July 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #349

This ebook was produced by:
Marcia Brooks, woodie4, David Edwards
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries




_THE CHRONICLES OF CANADA_

Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton of the University of Toronto

A series of thirty-two freshly-written narratives for popular reading,
designed to set forth, in historic continuity, the principal events and
movements in Canada, from the Norse Voyages to the Railway Builders.

       *       *       *       *       *

PART I. THE FIRST EUROPEAN VISITORS

1. _The Dawn of Canadian History_

A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada

BY STEPHEN LEACOCK


2. _The Mariner of St Malo_

A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier

BY STEPHEN LEACOCK



PART II. THE RISE OF NEW FRANCE

3. _The Founder of New France_

A Chronicle of Champlain

BY CHARLES W. COLBY


4. _The Jesuit Missions_

A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness

BY THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS


5. _The Seigneurs of Old Canada_

A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism

BY WILLIAM BENNETT MUNRO


6. _The Great Intendant_

A Chronicle of Jean Talon

BY THOMAS CHAPAIS


7. _The Fighting Governor_

A Chronicle of Frontenac

BY CHARLES W. COLBY



PART III. THE ENGLISH INVASION

8. _The Great Fortress_

A Chronicle of Louisbourg

BY WILLIAM WOOD


9. _The Acadian Exiles_

A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline

BY ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY


10. _The Passing of New France_

A Chronicle of Montcalm

BY WILLIAM WOOD


11. _The Winning of Canada_

A Chronicle of Wolfe

BY WILLIAM WOOD



PART IV. THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH CANADA

12. _The Father of British Canada_

A Chronicle of Carleton

BY WILLIAM WOOD


13. _The United Empire Loyalists_

A Chronicle of the Great Migration

BY W. STEWART WALLACE


14. _The War with the United States_

A Chronicle of 1812

BY WILLIAM WOOD



PART V. THE RED MAN IN CANADA

15. _The War Chief of the Ottawas_

A Chronicle of the Pontiac War

BY THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS


16. _The War Chief of the Six Nations_

A Chronicle of Joseph Brant

BY LOUIS AUBREY WOOD


17. _Tecumseh_

A Chronicle of the last Great Leader of his People

BY ETHEL T. RAYMOND



PART VI. PIONEERS OF THE NORTH AND WEST

18. _The 'Adventurers of England' on Hudson Bay_

A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North

BY AGNES C. LAUT


19. _Pathfinders of the Great Plains_

A Chronicle of La Vrendrye and his Sons

BY LAWRENCE J. BURPEE


20. _Adventurers of the Far North_

A Chronicle of the Arctic Seas

BY STEPHEN LEACOCK


21. _The Red River Colony_

A Chronicle of the Beginnings of Manitoba

BY LOUIS AUBREY WOOD


22. _Pioneers of the Pacific Coast_

A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters

BY AGNES C. LAUT


23. _The Cariboo Trail_

A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia

BY AGNES C. LAUT



PART VII. THE STRUGGLE FOR POLITICAL FREEDOM

24. _The Family Compact_

A Chronicle of the Rebellion in Upper Canada

BY W. STEWART WALLACE


25. _The Patriotes of '37_

A Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lower Canada

BY ALFRED D. DECELLES


26. _The Tribune of Nova Scotia_

A Chronicle of Joseph Howe

BY WILLIAM LAWSON GRANT


27. _The Winning of Popular Government_

A Chronicle of the Union of 1841

BY ARCHIBALD MACMECHAN



PART VIII. THE GROWTH OF NATIONALITY

28. _The Fathers of Confederation_

A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion

BY A. H. U. COLQUHOUN


29. _The Day of Sir John Macdonald_

A Chronicle of the Early Years of the Dominion

BY SIR JOSEPH POPE


30. _The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier_

A Chronicle of Our Own Times

BY OSCAR D. SKELTON



PART IX. NATIONAL HIGHWAYS

31. _All Afloat_

A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways

BY WILLIAM WOOD


32. _The Railway Builders_

A Chronicle of Overland Highways

BY OSCAR D. SKELTON


Published by

Glasgow, Brook & Company

TORONTO, CANADA

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: cover]

_CHRONICLES OF CANADA_

Edited by George M. Wrong and H. H. Langton

In thirty-two volumes

         8

THE GREAT FORTRESS

BY WILLIAM WOOD


_Part III_

_The English Invasion_


[Illustration: WOLFE AT LOUISBOURG, 1758
From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys]


THE

GREAT FORTRESS

A Chronicle of Louisbourg
1720-1760

BY

WILLIAM WOOD

[Illustration]

TORONTO

GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY
1920

_Copyright in all Countries subscribing to
the Berne Convention_

PRESS OF THE HUNTER-ROSE CO., LIMITED, TORONTO



TO

GEORGE MACKINNON WRONG

JUST CRITIC

GENEROUS FRIEND




PREFACE


Louisbourg was no mere isolated stronghold which could be lost or won
without affecting the wider issues of oversea dominion. On the contrary,
it was a necessary link in the chain of waterside posts which connected
France with America by way of the Atlantic, the St Lawrence, the Great
Lakes, and the Mississippi. But since the chain itself and all its other
links, and even the peculiar relation of Louisbourg to the Acadians and
the Conquest, have been fully described elsewhere in the _Chronicles of
Canada_, the present volume only tries to tell the purely individual
tale. Strange to say, this tale seems never to have been told before; at
least, not as one continuous whole. Of course, each siege has been
described, over and over again, in many special monographs as well as in
countless books about Canadian history. But nobody seems to have
written any separate work on Louisbourg showing causes, crises, and
results, all together, in the light of the complete naval and military
proof. So perhaps the following short account may really be the first
attempt to tell the tale of Louisbourg from the foundation to the fall.

                                                                 W. W.
      59 GRANDE ALLE,
      QUEBEC, 2nd January 1915.




CONTENTS

                                                Page

PREFACE                                           ix

  I. THE LAST SEA LINK WITH FRANCE, 1720-1744      1

 II. THE SEA LINK LOST, 1745                      24

III. THE LINK RECOVERED, 1748                     74

 IV. LOST FOR EVER, 1758                          90

  V. ANNIHILATION, 1760                          134

     BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE                        138

     INDEX                                       140


ILLUSTRATIONS

WOLFE AT LOUISBOURG, 1758                       _Frontispiece_
From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys.

THE SIEGE OF LOUISBOURG, 1758                      _Page_   1
Map by Bartholomew.

SIR WILLIAM PEPPERRELL                                     30
From the original painting by John Smibert.

EDWARD BOSCAWEN                                           102
From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds.

JAMES WOLFE                                               108
From the painting by Highmore.


[Illustration: SIEGE OF LOUISBOURG 1758
Bartholomew, Edin.]




CHAPTER I

THE LAST SEA LINK WITH FRANCE

1720-1744


The fortress of Louisbourg arose not from victory but from defeat; not
from military strength but from naval weakness; not from a new,
adventurous spirit of attack, but from a half-despairing hope of keeping
one last foothold by the sea. It was not begun till after the fortunes
of Louis XIV had reached their lowest ebb at the Treaty of Utrecht in
1713. It lived a precarious life of only forty years, from 1720 to 1760.
And nothing but bare ruins were left to mark its grave when it finally
passed, unheeded and unnamed, into the vast dominions of the conquering
British at the Peace of Paris in 1763.

The Treaty of Utrecht narrowed the whole French sea-coast of America
down to the single island of Cape Breton. Here, after seven years of
official hesitation and maritime exhaustion, Louisbourg was founded to
guard the only harbour the French thought they had a chance of holding.
A medal was struck to celebrate this last attempt to keep the one
remaining seaway open between Old France and New. Its legend ran thus:
_Ludovicoburgum Fundatum et Munitum, M.DCC.XX_ ('Louisbourg Founded and
Fortified, 1720'). Its obverse bore the profile of the young Louis XV,
whose statesmen hoped they had now established a French Gibraltar in
America, where French fleets and forts would command the straits leading
into the St Lawrence and threaten the coast of New England, in much the
same way as British fleets and forts commanded the entrance to the
Mediterranean and threatened the coasts of France and Spain. This hope
seemed flattering enough in time of peace; but it vanished at each
recurrent shock of war, because the Atlantic then became a hostile
desert for the French, while it still remained a friendly highway for
the British.

       *       *       *       *       *

The first French settlers in Louisbourg came over from Newfoundland,
which had been given up to the British by the treaty. The fishermen of
various nations had frequented different ports all round these shores
for centuries; and, by the irony of fate, the new French capital of Cape
Breton was founded at the entrance to the bay which had long been known
as English Harbour. Everything that rechristening could do, however, was
done to make Cape Breton French. Not only was English Harbour now called
Louisbourg, but St Peter's became Port Toulouse, St Anne's became Port
Dauphin, and the whole island itself was solemnly christened Ile Royale.

The shores of the St Lawrence up to Quebec and Montreal were as entirely
French as the islands in the Gulf. But Acadia, which used to form the
connection by land between Cape Breton and Canada, had now become a
British possession inhabited by the so-called 'neutral French.' These
Acadians, few in numbers and quite unorganized, were drawn in opposite
directions, on the one hand by their French proclivities, on the other
by their rooted affection for their own farms. Unlike the French
Newfoundlanders, who came in a body from Plaisance (now Placentia), the
Acadians preferred to stay at home. In 1717 an effort was made to bring
some of them into Louisbourg. But it only succeeded in attracting the
merest handful. On the whole, the French authorities preferred leaving
the Acadians as they were, in case a change in the fortunes of war might
bring them once more under the fleurs-de-lis, when the connection by
land between Quebec and the sea would again be complete. A plan for
promoting the immigration of the Irish Roman Catholics living near Cape
Breton never got beyond the stage of official memoranda. Thus the
population of the new capital consisted only of government employees,
French fishermen from Newfoundland and other neighbouring places, waifs
and strays from points farther off, bounty-fed _engags_ from France,
and a swarm of camp-following traders. The regular garrison was always
somewhat of a class apart.

The French in Cape Breton needed all the artificial aid they could get
from guns and forts. Even in Canada there was only a handful of French,
all told, at the time of the Treaty of Utrecht--twenty-five thousand;
while the British colonists in North America numbered fifteen times as
many. The respective populations had trebled by the time of the Cession
of Canada to the British fifty years later, but with a tendency for the
vast British preponderance to increase still more. Canada naturally had
neither men nor money to spare for Louisbourg; so the whole cost of
building the fortress, thirty million livres, came direct from France.
This sum was then the equivalent, in purchasing power, of at least as
many dollars now, though the old French livre was only rated at the
contemporary value of twenty cents. But the original plans were never
carried out; moreover, not half the money that actually was spent ever
reached the military chest at all. There were too many thievish fingers
by the way.

The French were not a colonizing people, their governing officials hated
a tour of duty oversea, and Louisbourg was the most unpopular of all the
stations in the service. Those Frenchmen who did care for outlandish
places went east to India or west to Canada. Nobody wanted to go to a
small, dull, out-of-the-way garrison town like Louisbourg, where there
was no social life whatever--nothing but fishermen, smugglers, petty
traders, a discontented garrison, generally half composed of foreigners,
and a band of dishonest, second-rate officials, whose one idea was how
to get rich and get home. The inspectors who were sent out either failed
in their duty and joined the official gang of thieves, or else resigned
in disgust. Worse still, because this taint was at the very source, the
royal government in France was already beset with that entanglement of
weakness and corruption which lasted throughout the whole century
between the decline of Louis XIV and the meteoric rise of Napoleon.

The founders of Louisbourg took their time to build it. It was so very
profitable to spin the work out as long as possible. The plan of the
fortress was good. It was modelled after the plans of Vauban, who had
been the greatest engineer in the greatest European army of the previous
generation. But the actual execution was hampered, at every turn, by
want of firmness at headquarters and want of honest labour on the spot.
Sea sand was plentiful, worthless, and cheap. So it was used for the
mortar, with most disastrous results. The stone was hewn from a quarry
of porphyritic trap near by and used for the walls in the rough. Cut
stone and good bricks were brought out from France as ballast by the
fishing fleet. Some of these finer materials were built into the
governor's and the intendant's quarters. Others were sold to New England
traders and replaced by inferior substitutes.

Of course, direct trade between the opposing colonies was strictly
forbidden by both the French and British navigation acts. But the
Louisbourg officials winked at anything that would enrich them quickly,
while the New Englanders pushed in eagerly wherever a profit could be
made by any means at all. Louisbourg was intended to be the general
rendezvous of the transatlantic French fishing vessels; a great port of
call between France, Canada, and the French West Indies; and a harbour
of refuge in peace and war. But the New England shipping was doing the
best trade at Louisbourg, and doing it in double contraband, within five
years of the foundation. Cod caught by Frenchmen from Louisbourg itself,
French wines and brandy brought out from France, tobacco and sugar
brought north from the French West Indies, all offered excellent chances
to enterprising Yankees, who came in with foodstuffs and building
materials of their own. One vessel sailed for New York with a cargo of
claret and brandy that netted her owners a profit of a hundred per cent,
even after paying the usual charges demanded by the French custom-house
officials for what really was a smuggler's licence.

Fishing, smuggling, and theft were the three great industries of
Louisbourg. The traders shared the profits of the smuggling. But the
intendant and his officials kept most of the choice thieving for
themselves.

The genuine settlers--and a starveling crew they were--wrested their
debt-laden livelihood from the local fishing. This was by no means bad
in itself. But, like other fishermen before and since, they were in
perpetual bondage to the traders, who took good care not to let accounts
get evened up. A happier class of fishermen made up the _engags_, who
were paid by government to 'play settler' for a term of years, during
which they helped to swell the official census of uncongenial
Louisbourg. The regular French fishing fleet of course returned to
France at the end of every season, and thus enjoyed a full spell of
French delights on shore.

The Acadians supplied Louisbourg with meat and vegetables. These were
brought in by sea; for there were no roads worth mentioning; nor, in the
contemporary state of Cape Breton, was there any need for roads. The
farmers were few, widely scattered, and mostly very poor. The only
prosperous settlement within a long day's march was situated on the
beautiful Mira river. James Gibson, a Boston merchant and militiaman,
who served against Louisbourg in 1745, was much taken by the appearance
of an establishment 'at the mouth of a large salmon fishery,' by one
'very handsome house, with two large barns, two large gardens, and fine
fields of corn,' and by another with 'six rooms on a floor and well
furnished.' He adds that 'in one of the barns were fifteen loads of hay,
and room sufficient for sixty horses and cattle.' In 1753 the intendant
sent home a report about a proposed 'German' settlement near the 'Grand
Lake of Mira.' A new experiment was then being tried, the importation of
settlers from Alsace-Lorraine. But five years afterwards Cape Breton had
been lost to France for ever.

The fact is that the French never really colonized Cape Breton at large,
and Louisbourg least of all. They knew the magnificent possibilities of
Sydney harbour, but its mere extent prevented their attempting to make
use of it. They saw that the whole island was a maritime paradise, with
seaports in its very heart as well as round its shores. But they were a
race of gallant, industrious landsmen at home, with neither the wish nor
the aptitude for a nautical life abroad. They could not have failed to
see that there was plenty of timber in some parts of the island, and
that the soil was fit to bear good crops of grain in others. A little
prospecting would also have shown them iron, coal, and gypsum. But their
official parasites did not want to see smuggling and peculation replaced
by industry and trade. Nothing, indeed, better proves how little they
thought of making Ile Royale a genuine colony than their utter failure
to exploit any one of its teeming natural resources in forest, field, or
mine.

       *       *       *       *       *

What the French did with extraneous resources and artificial aids in the
town of Louisbourg is more to the purpose in hand. The problem of their
position, and of its strength and weakness in the coming clash of arms,
depended on six naval, military, and governmental factors, each one of
which must be considered before the whole can be appreciated. These six
factors were--the government, the garrison, the militia, the Indians,
the navy, and the fortress.

_Get rich and go home._ The English-speaking peoples, whose ancestors
once went to England as oversea emigrants, and two-thirds of whom are
now themselves the scions of successive migrations across the Seven
Seas, cannot understand how intensely the general run of French
officials detested colonial service, especially in a place like
Louisbourg, which was everything the average Frenchman hated most. This
British failure to understand a national trait, which is still as
strongly marked as ever, accounts for a good deal of the exaggerated
belief in the strength of the French position in America. The British
Americans who tried to think out plans of conquest were wont to
under-estimate their own unorganized resources and to over-estimate the
organized resources of the French, especially when they set their minds
on Louisbourg.

The British also entertained the erroneous idea that 'the whole country
was under one command.' This was the very thing it was not. The French
system was the autocratic one without the local autocrat; for the
functions of the governor and the intendant overlapped each other, and
all disputes had to be referred to Quebec, where the functions of
another governor and another intendant also overlapped each other. If no
decision could be reached at Quebec, and the question at issue was one
of sufficient importance, the now double imbroglio would be referred to
the Supreme Council in France, which would write back to Quebec, whence
the decision would be forwarded to Louisbourg, where it would arrive
months after many other troubles had grown out of the original dispute.

The system was false from the start, because the overlapping was
intentional. The idea was to prevent any one man from becoming too
strong and too independent. The result was to keep governors and
intendants at perpetual loggerheads and to divide every station into
opposing parties. Did the governor want money and material for the
fortifications? Then the intendant was sure the military chest, which
was in his own charge, could not afford it. The governor might sometimes
gain his ends by giving a definite emergency order under his hand and
seal. But, if the emergency could not be proved, this laid him open to
great risks from the intendant's subsequent recriminations before the
Superior Council in Quebec or the Supreme Council in France. The only
way such a system could be worked at all was either by corrupt collusion
or by superhuman co-operation between the two conflicting parties, or by
appointing a man of genius who could make every other official discharge
his proper duties and no more. Corrupt collusion was not very common,
because the governors were mostly naval or military men, and the naval
and military men were generally honest. Co-operation was impossible
between two merely average men; and no genius was ever sent to such a
place as Louisbourg. The ablest man in either of the principal posts was
the notorious intendant Bigot, who began here on a small scale the
consummate schemes that proved so disastrously successful at Quebec.
_Get rich and go home._

The minor governmental life of Louisbourg was of a piece with the major.
There were four or five lesser members of the Superior Council, which
also had jurisdiction over Ile St Jean, as Prince Edward Island was then
called. The lucrative chances of the custom-house were at the mercy of
four underpaid officials grandiloquently called a Court of Admiralty. An
inferior court known as the bailiwick tried ordinary civil suits and
breaches of the peace. This bailiwick also offered what might be
euphemistically called 'business opportunities' to enterprising members.
True, there was no police to execute its decrees; and at one time a
punctilious resident complained that 'there was not even a common
hangman, nor a jail, nor even a tormentor to rack the criminals or
inflict other appropriate tortures.' But appeals took a long time and
cost much money; so even the officials of the bailiwick could pick up a
living by threats of the law's delay, on the one hand, and promises of
perverted local justice, on the other. That there was money to be made,
in spite of the meagre salaries, is proved by the fact that the best
journeyman wig-maker in Louisbourg 'grew extremely rich in different
branches of commerce, especially in the contraband,' after filling the
dual position of judge of the admiralty and judge of the bailiwick, both
to the apparent satisfaction of his friend the intendant.

The next factor was the garrison of regulars. This was under the direct
command of the king's lieutenant, who took his orders from the governor.
The troops liked Louisbourg no better than the officials did. True,
there were taverns in plenty: even before Louisbourg was officially
founded they had become such a thriving nuisance that orders for their
better control had been sent out from France. But there was no other
place for the ordinary soldier to go to in his spare time. The officers
felt the want of a larger outlook even more than the men did; and
neither man nor officer ever went to Louisbourg if he could help it.
When Montcalm, the greatest Frenchman the New World ever saw, came out
to Canada, there was eager competition among the troops at home to join
his army in the field. Officers paid large sums for the honour of
exchanging into any one of the battalions ordered to the front; and when
volunteers were called for from the ranks every single man stepped
forward. But no Montcalm came out to Louisbourg, and nothing but
bounties could get a volunteer. There were only between five and six
hundred regulars in the whole garrison during the first siege,
twenty-five years after the foundation, and nearly half of these were
foreigners, mostly 'pay-fighting Swiss.'

The third factor was the militia. Every able-bodied man, not specially
exempt for other duties, was liable for service in time of war; and the
whole island could be drawn upon for any great emergency at Louisbourg.
Between thirteen and fourteen hundred men were got under arms for the
siege of 1745. Those who lived in Louisbourg had the advantage of a
little slack discipline and a little slack drill. Those in the country
had some practice in the handling of firearms. But, taken all round, it
would be an exaggeration to call them even quarter-trained soldiers.

The fourth factor was the Indians. They belonged to the Micmac tribe of
the great Algonquin family, and probably numbered no more than about
four thousand throughout the whole French sphere of influence in what
are now the Maritime Provinces. A few hundred braves might have been
ready to take the war-path in the wilds of Cape Breton; but sieges were
not at all in their line, except when they could hang round the
besiegers' inland flanks, on the chance of lifting scalps from careless
stragglers or ambushing an occasional small party gone astray. As in
Canada, so in Cape Breton, the Indians naturally sided with the French,
who disturbed them less and treated them better than the British did.
The British, who enjoyed the inestimable advantage of superior
sea-power, had more goods to exchange. But in every other respect the
French were very much preferred. The handful of French sent out an
astonishingly great number of heroic and sympathetic missionaries to the
natives. The many British sent out astonishingly few. The Puritan clergy
did shamefully little compared with the wonderful Jesuits. Moreover,
while the French in general made the Indian feel he was at all events a
fellow human being, the average British colonist simply looked on him as
so much vermin, to be destroyed together with the obstructive wilds that
harboured him.

The fifth factor, the navy, brings us into contact with world-wide
problems of sea-power which are too far-reaching for discussion here.[1]
Suffice it to say that, while Louisbourg was an occasional convenience,
it had also peculiar dangers for a squadron from the weaker of two
hostile navies, as squadrons from France were likely to be. The British
could make for a dozen different harbours on the coast. The French could
make for only this one. Therefore the British had only to guard against
this one stronghold if the French were in superior force; they could the
more easily blockade it if the French were in equal force; and they
could the more easily annihilate it if it was defended by an inferior
force.

[Footnote 1: See in this Series _The Winning of Canada_ and _The Passing
of New France_, where they are discussed.]

The last factor was the fortress itself. This so-called 'Gibraltar of
the West,' this 'Quebec by the sea,' this 'Dunkirk of New France,' was
certainly first of its kind. But it was first only in a class of one;
while the class itself was far from being a first among classes. The
natural position was vastly inferior to that of Quebec or Gibraltar;
while the fortifications were not to be compared with those of Dunkirk,
which, in one sense, they were meant to replace. Dunkirk had been sold
by Charles II to Louis XIV, who made it a formidable naval base
commanding the straits of Dover. When the Treaty of Utrecht compelled
its demolition, the French tried to redress the balance a little by
building similar works in America on a very much smaller scale, with a
much more purely defensive purpose, and as an altogether subsidiary
undertaking. Dunkirk was 'a pistol held at England's head' because it
was an integral part of France, which was the greatest military country
in the world and second to England alone on the sea. Louisbourg was no
American Dunkirk because it was much weaker in itself, because it was
more purely defensive, because the odds of population and general
resources as between the two colonies were fifteen to one in favour of
the British, and because the preponderance of British sea-power was even
greater in America than it was in Europe.

The harbour of Louisbourg ran about two miles north-east and south-west,
with a clear average width of half a mile. The two little peninsulas on
either side of the entrance were nearly a mile apart. But the actual
fairway of the entrance was narrowed to little more than a clear quarter
of a mile by the reefs and islands running out from the south-western
peninsula, on which the fortress stood. This low, nubbly tongue of land
was roughly triangular. It measured about three-quarters of a mile on
its longest side, facing the harbour, over half a mile on the land side,
facing the enemy's army, and a good deal under half a mile on the side
facing the sea. It had little to fear from naval bombardment so long as
the enemy's fleet remained outside, because fogs and storms made it a
very dangerous lee shore, and because, then as now, ships would not pit
themselves against forts unless there was no rival fleet to fight, and
unless other circumstances were unusually propitious.

The entrance was defended by the Island Battery, which flanked the
approach with thirty-nine guns, and the Royal Battery, which directly
faced it with thirty guns. Some temporary lines with a few more guns
were prepared in time of danger to prevent the enemy from landing in
Gabarus Bay, which ran for miles south-west of Louisbourg. But the
garrison, even with the militia, was never strong enough to keep the
enemy at arm's length from any one of these positions. Moreover, the
north-east peninsula, where the lighthouse stood, commanded the Island
Battery; and the land side of Louisbourg itself was commanded by a range
of low hillocks less than half a mile away.

It was this land side, containing the citadel and other works, which so
impressed outsiders with the idea of impregnable strength. The glacis
was perfect--not an inch of cover wherever you looked; and the approach
was mostly across a slimy bog. The ditch was eighty feet wide. The walls
rose over thirty feet above the ditch. There were embrasures for one
hundred and forty-eight guns all round; though not more than ninety were
ever actually mounted. On the seaward face Louisbourg was not so
strongly fortified; but in the centre of this face there were a deep
ditch and high wall, with bastions on each immediate flank, and lighter
defences connecting these with the landward face. A dozen streets were
laid out, so as to divide the whole town into conveniently square
little blocks. The area of the town itself was not much more than a
hundred acres altogether--rather close quarters for several thousand
men, women, and children during a siege.

If reports and memoranda could defend a fortress, then Louisbourg ought
indeed to have been impregnable. Of course every official trust entails
endless correspondence. But, quite apart from the stated returns that go
through 'the usual channel of communication,' reams and reams of paper
were filled with special reports, inspections, complaints, and good
advice. The governor wrote home, most elaborately, in 1724, about the
progress of the works. Ten years later he announced the official
inauguration of the lighthouse on the 1st of April. In 1736 the chief
item was the engineer's report on the walls. Next year the great anxiety
was about a dangerous famine, with all its attendant distress for the
many and its shameless profits for the few. On November 23, 1744,
reinforcements and provisions were asked for, because intelligence had
been received that the New Englanders were going to blockade Louisbourg
the following summer. At the same time, the discontent of the garrison
had come to a head, and a mutiny had broken out because the extra
working pay had not been forthcoming. After this the discipline became,
not sterner, but slacker than ever, especially among the hireling Swiss.
On February 8, 1745, within three months of the first siege, a
memorandum was sent in to explain what was still required to finish the
works begun twenty-five years before.

But, after all, it was not so much the defective works that really
mattered as the defective garrison behind them. English-speaking
civilians who have written about Louisbourg have sometimes taken partial
account of the ordinary Frenchman's repugnance to oversea duty in time
of peace and of the little worth of hireling foreigners in time of war.
But they have always ignored that steady drip, drip, drip of
deterioration which reduces the efficiency of every garrison condemned
to service in remote and thoroughly uncongenial countries. Louisbourg
was remote, weeks away from exchanges with Quebec, months from exchanges
with any part of France or Switzerland. And what other foreign station
could have been more thoroughly uncongenial, except, perhaps, a convict
station in the tropics? Bad quarters were endurable in Paris or even in
the provinces, where five minutes' walk would take one into something
pleasanter. Bad fortifications would inspire less apprehension anywhere
in France, where there was at least an army always ready to take the
field. But cold, cramped quarters in foggy little Louisbourg, between
the estranging sea and an uncouth land of rock, bog, sand, and scrubby
vegetation, made all the world of difference in the soldier's eyes. Add
to this his want of faith in works which he saw being scamped by
rascally contractors, and we can begin to understand why the general
attitude of town and garrison alike was one of 'Here to-day and gone
to-morrow.'




CHAPTER II

THE SEA LINK LOST

1745


Rome would not rest till she had ruined Carthage. Britain would not rest
till she had seen Dunkirk demolished. New England would not rest till
she had taken Louisbourg.

Louisbourg was unique in all America, and that was its undoing. It was
the one sentinel beside the gateway to New France; therefore it ought to
be taken before Quebec and Canada were attacked. It was the one corsair
lying in perpetual wait beside the British lines of seaborne trade;
therefore it must be taken before British shipping could be safe. It was
the one French sea link between the Old World and the New; therefore its
breaking was of supreme importance. It was the one real fortress ever
heard of in America, and it was in absolutely alien hands; therefore, so
ran New England logic, it was most offensive to all true Britons, New
Englanders, and Puritans; to all rivals in smuggling, trade, and
privateering; and to all right-thinking people generally.

       *       *       *       *       *

The weakness of Louisbourg was very welcome news to energetic
Massachusetts. In 1744, when Frederick the Great had begun the War of
the Austrian Succession and France had taken arms against Great Britain,
du Quesnel, the governor of Louisbourg, who had received the
intelligence of these events some weeks before the alert Bostonians, at
once decided to win credit by striking the first blow. He was much
disliked in Louisbourg. He drank hard, cursed his subordinates when in
his cups, and set the whole place by the ears. Moreover, many of those
under him wished to avoid giving the British Americans any provocation,
in the hope that the war might be confined to Europe. But none dared to
refuse a legal and positive order. So in May his expedition left for
Canso, where there was a little home-made British fort on the strait
between Cape Breton and the mainland of Nova Scotia. The eighty
fishermen in Canso surrendered to du Vivier, the French commander, who
sent them on to Boston, after burning their fort to the ground. Elated
by this somewhat absurd success, and strengthened by nearly a hundred
regulars and four hundred Indians, who raised his total force to at
least a thousand men, du Vivier next proceeded against Annapolis on the
west side of Nova Scotia. But Mascarene, the British commander there,
stood fast on his defence, though his men were few and his means small.
The Acadian French in the vicinity were afraid to join du Vivier openly.
The siege dragged on. The British received a slight reinforcement. The
French did not. And in September du Vivier suddenly retired without
attempting an assault.

The burning of Canso and the attack on Annapolis stirred up the wrath of
New England. A wild enthusiast, William Vaughan, urged Governor Shirley
of Massachusetts to make an immediate counter-attack. Shirley was an
English lawyer, good at his own work, but very anxious to become famous
as a conqueror. He lent a willing ear to Vaughan, and astounded the
General Court of Massachusetts on January 21, 1745, by first inducing
the members to swear secrecy and then asking them to consider a plan for
a colonial expedition against Louisbourg. He and they were on very good
terms. But they were provincial, cautious, and naturally slow when it
came to planning campaigns and pledging their credit for what was then
an enormous sum of money. Nor could they be blamed. None of them knew
much about armies and navies; most thought Louisbourg was a real
transatlantic Dunkirk; and all knew that they were quite insolvent
already. Their joint committee of the two Houses reported against the
scheme; whereupon each House carried a secret adverse vote by a large
majority.

But, just before these votes were taken, a Puritan member from a country
district wrestled in what he thought confidential prayer with such loud
ejaculations that an eavesdropper overheard him and passed the secret
on. Of course the momentous news at once began to run like wildfire
through the province. Still, the 'Noes had it,' both in the country and
the House. Shirley was dejected and in doubt what to do next. But James
Gibson, the merchant militiaman, suddenly hit on the idea of getting up
a petition among the business community. The result surpassed every
expectation. All the merchants were eager for attack. Louisbourg
embodied everything they feared and hated: interference with seaborne
commerce, rank popery, French domination, trouble with Acadia, and the
chance of being themselves attacked. When the petition was presented to
both Houses, the whole subject was again debated. Provincial insolvency
and the absence of either a fleet or an army were urged by the
Opposition. But the fighting party put forth all their strength and
pleaded that delay meant reinforcements for Louisbourg and a good chance
lost for ever. The vote would have been a tie if a member of the
Opposition had not slipped and broken his leg as he was hurrying down to
the House. Once the decision had been reached, however, all did their
best to ensure success.

Shirley wrote to his brother governors. Vaughan galloped off post-haste
to New Hampshire with the first official letter. Gibson led the
merchants in local military zeal. The result was that Massachusetts,
which then included Maine, raised over 3000 men, while New Hampshire and
Connecticut raised about 500 each. Rhode Island concurred, but
ungraciously and ineffectually late. She nursed two grudges against
Massachusetts, one about the undeniably harsh treatment meted out to her
great founder, Roger Williams, the other about that most fruitful
source of inter-provincial mischief-making, a disputed boundary. New
York lent some guns, which proved very useful. The remaining colonies
did nothing.

Shirley's choice of a commander-in-chief wisely fell on William
Pepperrell. There was no military leader in the whole of New England. So
the next most suitable man was the civilian who best combined the
necessary qualities of good sense, sound knowledge of men and affairs,
firmness, diplomacy, and popularity. Popularity was essential, because
all the men were volunteers. Pepperrell, who answered every reasonable
test, went through the campaign with flying colours and came out of it
as the first and only baronet of Massachusetts. He was commissioned as
major-general by all three contributing provinces, since none of them
recognized any common authority except that of the crown. He was ably
seconded by many leading men who, if not trained soldiers, were at least
accustomed to the organization of public life; for in those days the
word politician had not become a term of reproach in America, and the
people were often represented by men of the highest character.

The financial difficulty was overcome by issuing letters of credit,
which were afterwards redeemed by the Imperial government, at a total
cost of nearly a quarter of a million sterling. There was no time and
there were no means to change the militia into an army. But many
compensating advantages helped to make up for its deficiencies. The men
volunteered eagerly. They were all very keen to fight the French. Most
of them understood the individual use of firearms. Many of them had been
to sea and had learned to work together as a crew. Nearly all of them
had the handiness then required for life in a new country. And, what
with conviction and what with prejudice, they were also quite disposed
to look upon the expedition as a sort of crusade against idolatrous
papists, and therefore as a very proper climax to the Great Awakening
which had recently roused New England to the heights of religious
zealotry under the leadership of the famous George Whitefield himself.

Strangely enough, neither Whitefield nor his friend Pepperrell was at
all sure that the expedition was a wise or even a godly venture.
Whitefield warned Pepperrell that he would be envied if he succeeded and
abused if he failed.

[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM PEPPERRELL From the original painting by John
Smibert]

The Reverend Thomas Prince openly regretted the change of enemy. 'The
Heavenly shower is over. From fighting the Devil they needs must turn to
fighting the French.' But Parson Moody, most truculent of Puritans, had
no doubts whatever. The French, the pope, and the Devil were all one to
him; and when he embarked as senior chaplain he took a hatchet with
which to break down the graven images of Louisbourg. In the end
Whitefield warmed up enough to give the expedition its official motto:
_Nil desperandum Christo Duce_. The _Never Despair_ heartened the
worldlings. The _Christ our Commander_ appealed to the 'Great Awakened.'
And the whole saying committed him to nothing particular concerning the
issue at stake.

The three militia contingents numbered 4270 men. The three naval
contingents had 13 vessels mounting 216 guns. In addition to both these
forces there were the transports, which had considerable crews. But all
these together, if caught on the open sea, would be no match for a few
regular men-of-war. New England had no navy, though the New Englanders
had enjoyed a good deal of experience in minor privateering against the
Spaniards during the last few years, as well as a certain amount of
downright piracy in time of peace, whenever a Frenchman or a Spaniard
could be safely taken at a disadvantage. So Shirley asked Commodore
Warren, commanding the North American station, to lend his aid. Warren
had married an American and was very well disposed towards the
colonists. But, having no orders from England, he at first felt obliged
to refuse. Within a short time, however, he was given a free hand by the
Imperial government, which authorized him to concert measures with
Shirley 'for the annoyance of the enemy, and for his Majesty's Service
in North America.'

Warren immediately sailed for Canso with three men-of-war and sent for
another to join him. His wait for orders made him nearly three weeks
later than the New Englanders in arriving at the rendezvous. But this
delay, due to no fault of his own, was really an advantage to the New
England militia, who thus had a chance of learning a little more drill
and discipline. His four vessels carried 180 guns and 1150 men at full
strength. The thirteen Provincial armed vessels carried more than 1000
men. No exact returns were ever made out for the transports. But as '68
lay at anchor' in Canso harbour, while others 'came dropping in from
day to day,' as there were 4270 militiamen on board, in addition to all
the stores, and as the French counted '96 transports' making for Gabarus
Bay, there could not have been less than 100, while the crews could
hardly have mustered less than an average of 20 men each. The grand
total, at the beginning of the expedition, could not, therefore, have
been less than 8000 men, of all sorts put together--over 4000 American
Provincial militia, over 1000 men of the Royal Navy, quite 1000 men
aboard the Provincial fighting vessels, and at least 2000 more as crews
to work the transports.

May 1, the first Sunday the Provincials spent at Canso, was a day of
great and multifarious activity, both sacred and profane. Parson Moody,
the same who had taken the war-path with his iconoclastic hatchet,
delivered a tremendous philippic from the text, 'Thy people shall be
willing in the day of Thy power.' Luckily for his congregation he had
the voice of a Stentor, as there were several mundane competitors in an
adjoining field, each bawling the word of command at the full pitch of
his lungs. A conscientious diarist, though full of sabbatarian zeal, was
fain to admit that 'Severall sorts of Busnesses was a-Going on: Sum
a-Exercising, Sum a-Hearing o' the Preaching.'

On May 5 Warren sailed into Canso. The Provincials thought the date of
his arrival a very happy omen, as it fell on what was then, according to
the Old Style calendar, St George's Day, April 23. After a conference
with Pepperrell he hurried off to begin the blockade of Louisbourg. A
week later, May 21, the transports joined him there, and landed their
militiamen for one of the most eccentric sieges ever known.

       *       *       *       *       *

While the British had been spending the first four months of 1745 in
preparing 8000 men, the French authorities in Louisbourg, whose force
was less than 2000, had been wasting the same precious time in
ridiculous councils of war. It is a well-known saying that councils of
war never fight. But these Louisbourg councils did not even prepare to
fight. The news from Boston was not heeded. Worse yet, no attention was
paid to the American scouting vessels, which had been hovering off the
coast for more than a month. The bibulous du Quesnel had died in
October. But his successor, du Chambon, was no better as a commandant.
Perhaps the kindest thing to say of du Chambon is that he was the
foolish father of a knavish son--of that du Chambon de Vergor who, in
the next war, surrendered Fort Beausjour without a siege and left one
sleepy sentry to watch Wolfe's Cove the night before the Battle of the
Plains.

It is true that du Chambon had succeeded to a thoroughly bad command. He
had no naval force whatever; and the military force had become worse
instead of better. The mutiny in December had left the 560 regulars in a
very sullen frame of mind. They knew that acquisitive government
officials were cheating them out of their proper rations of bacon and
beans. The officials knew that the soldiers knew. And so suspicion and
resentment grew strong between them. The only other force was the
militia, which, with certain exceptions, comprised every male inhabitant
of Cape Breton who could stand on two legs and hold a musket with both
hands. There were boys in their early teens and old men in their
sixties. Nearly 1800 ought to have been available. But four or five
hundred that might have been brought in never received their marching
orders. So the total combatants only amounted to some 1900, of whom
1350 were militia. The non-combatants numbered nearly as many. The
cramped hundred acres of imprisoned Louisbourg thus contained almost
4000 people--mutineers and militia, women and children, drones and other
officials, all huddled up together.

No reinforcements arrived after the first appearance of the British
fleet. Marin, a well-known guerilla leader, had been sent down from
Quebec, through the bush, with six or seven hundred whites and Indians,
to join the two thousand men whom the French government had promised du
Vivier for a second, and this time a general, attack on Acadia. But
these other two thousand were never sent; and Marin, having failed to
take Annapolis by the first week in June, was too late and too weak to
help Louisbourg afterwards. The same ill luck pursued the French by sea.
On April 30 the _Rnomme_, a very smart frigate bringing out
dispatches, was chased off by the Provincial cruisers; while all
subsequent arrivals from the outside world were intercepted by Warren.

       *       *       *       *       *

The landing effected on May 12 was not managed according to Shirley's
written instructions; nor was the siege. Shirley had been playing a
little war game in his study, with all the inconvenient obstacles left
out--the wind, the weather, the crashing surf in Gabarus Bay, the rocks
and bogs of the surrounding country, the difficulties of entering a
narrow-necked harbour under a combination of end-on and broadside fire,
the terrible lee shore off the islands, reefs, and Lighthouse Point, the
commonest vigilance of the most slovenly garrison, and even the
offensive power of the guns on the walls of Louisbourg itself. Shirley's
plan was that Pepperrell should arrive in the offing too late to be
seen, land unobserved, and march on Louisbourg in four detachments while
the garrison was wrapped in slumber. Two of these detachments were to
march within striking distance and then 'halt and keep a profound
silence.' The third was to march 'under cover of said hills' until it
came opposite the Royal Battery, which it was to assault on a given
signal; while the 'profound silence' men rushed the western gate. The
fourth detachment was to race along the shore, scale a certain spot in
the wall, 'and secure the windows of the Governor's Apartments.' All
this was to be done by raw militia, on ground they had never
reconnoitred, and in the dead of night.

Needless to say, Pepperrell tried something quite different. At daybreak
of the 12th the whole fleet stood into Gabarus Bay, a large open
roadstead running west from the little Louisbourg peninsula. The
Provincials eyed the fortress eagerly. It looked mean, squat, and
shrunken in the dim grey light of early dawn. But it looked hard enough,
for all that. Its alarm bells began to ring. Its signal cannon fired.
And all the people who had been living outside hurried in behind the
walls.

The New Englanders were so keen to land that they ran some danger of
falling into complete disorder. But Pepperrell managed very cleverly.
Seeing that some Frenchmen were ready to resist a landing on Flat Point,
two miles south-west of Louisbourg, he made a feint against it, drew
their fire, and then raced his boats for Freshwater Cove, another two
miles beyond. Having completely outdistanced the handful of panting
Frenchmen, he landed in perfect safety and presently scattered them with
a wild charge which cost them about twenty in killed, wounded, and
prisoners. Before dark two thousand Provincials were ashore. The other
two thousand landed at their leisure the following day.

The next event in this extraordinary siege is one of the curiosities of
war. On May 14 the enthusiastic Vaughan took several hundreds of these
newly landed men to the top of the nearest hillock and saluted the walls
with three cheers. He then circled the whole harbour, keeping well
inland, till he reached the undefended storehouses on the inner side of
the North-East Harbour, a little beyond the Royal Battery. These he at
once set on fire. The pitch, tar, wood, and other combustibles made a
blinding smoke, which drifted over the Royal Battery and spread a
stampeding panic among its garrison of four hundred men. Vaughan then
retired for the night. On his return to the Royal Battery in the
morning, with only thirteen men, he was astounded to see no sign of life
there. Suspecting a ruse, he bribed an Indian with a flask of brandy to
feign being drunk and reel up to the walls. The Indian reached the fort
unchallenged, climbed into an embrasure, and found the whole place
deserted. Vaughan followed at once; and a young volunteer, shinning up
the flag-pole, made his own red coat fast to the top. This defiance was
immediately answered by a random salvo from Louisbourg, less than a mile
across the harbour.

Vaughan's next move was to write a dispatch to Pepperrell: 'May it
please your Honour to be informed that by the Grace of God and the
courage of 13 Men I entered the Royal Battery about 9 o' the clock and
am waiting for a reinforcement and a flag.' He had hardly sent this off
before he was attacked by four boats from Louisbourg. Quite undaunted,
however, he stood out on the open beach with his thirteen men and kept
them all at bay till the reinforcement and the flag arrived with
Bradstreet, who was afterwards to win distinction as the captor of Fort
Frontenac during the great campaign of 1759.

This disgraceful abandonment and this dramatic capture of the Royal
Battery marked the first and most decisive turning-point in the fortunes
of the siege. The French were dismayed, the British were elated; and
both the dismay and the elation grew as time wore on, because everything
seemed to conspire against the French and in favour of the British. Even
the elements, as the anonymous _Habitant de Louisbourg_ complains in his
wonderfully candid diary, seemed to have taken sides. There had never
been so fine a spring for naval operations. But this was the one thing
which was entirely independent of French fault or British merit. All the
other strokes of luck owed something to human causes. Wise-acres had
shaken their heads over the crazy idea of taking British cannon balls
solely to fit French cannon that were to be taken at the beginning of
the siege: it was too much like selling the pelt before the trap was
sprung. Yet these balls actually were used to load the forty-two
pounders taken with the Royal Battery! Moreover, as if to cap the
climax, ten other cannon were found buried in the North-East Harbour;
and again spare British balls were found to fit exactly! The fact is
that what we should now call the Intelligence Department had been doing
good work the year before by spying out the land at Louisbourg and
reporting to the proper men in Boston.

The Bostonians had always intended to take the Royal Battery at the
earliest possible moment. But nobody had thought that the French would
abandon it without a blow and leave it intact for their enemy, with all
its armament complete. The French council of war apparently shrank from
hurting the feelings of the engineer in charge, who had pleaded for its
preservation! They then ran away without spiking the guns properly, and
without making the slightest attempt either to burn the carriages or
knock the trunnions off. The invaluable stores were left in their
places. The only real destruction was caused by a barrel of powder,
which some bunglers blew up by mistake. The inevitable consequence of
all this French ineptitude was that the Royal Battery roared against
Louisbourg the very next morning with tremendous effect, smashing the
works most exposed to its fire, bringing down houses about the
inhabitants' ears, and sending the terrified non-combatants scurrying
off to underground cover.

       *       *       *       *       *

Meanwhile the bulk of the New Englanders were establishing their camp
along the brook which fell into Gabarus Bay beside Flat Point and within
two miles of Louisbourg. Equipment of all kinds was very scarce. Tents
were so few and bad that old sails stretched over ridge-poles had to be
used instead. When sails ran short, brushwood shelters roofed in with
overlapping spruce boughs were used as substitutes.

Landing the four thousand men had been comparatively easy work. But
landing the stores was very hard indeed; while landing the guns was not
only much harder still, but full of danger as well. Many a flat-boat was
pounded into pulpwood while unloading the stores, though the men waded
in waist-deep and carried all the heavy bundles on their heads and
shoulders. When it came to the artillery, it meant a boat lost for every
single piece of ordnance landed. Nor was even this the worst; for,
strange as it may seem, there was, at first, more risk of foundering
ashore than afloat. There were neither roads nor yet the means to make
them. There were no horses, oxen, mules, or any other means of
transport, except the brawny men themselves, who literally buckled to
with anchor-cable drag-ropes--a hundred pair of straining men for each
great, lumbering gun. Over the sand they went at a romp. Over the rocks
they had to take care; and in the dense, obstructing scrub they had to
haul through by main force. But this was child's play to what awaited
them in the slimy, shifting, and boulder-strewn bog they had to pass
before reaching the hillocks which commanded Louisbourg.

The first attempts here were disastrous. The guns sank out of sight in
the engulfing bog; while the toiling men became regular human targets
for shot and shell from Louisbourg. It was quite plain that the British
batteries could never be built on the hillocks if the guns had nothing
to keep them from a boggy grave, and if the men had no protection from
the French artillery. But a shipbuilder colonel, Meserv of New
Hampshire, came to the rescue by designing a gun-sleigh, sixteen feet in
length and five in the beam. Then the crews were told off again, two
hundred men for each sleigh, and orders were given that the work should
not be done except at night or under cover of the frequent fogs. After
this, things went much better than before. But the labour was tremendous
still; while the danger from random shells bursting among the boulders
was not to be despised. Four hundred struggling feet, four hundred
straining arms--each team hove on its long, taut cable through fog,
rain, and the blackness of the night, till every gun had been towed into
one of the batteries before the walls. The triumph was all the greater
because the work grew, not easier, but harder as it progressed. The same
route used twice became an impassable quagmire. So, when the last two
hundred men had wallowed through, the whole ensnaring bog was seamed
with a perfect maze of decoying death-trails snaking in and out of the
forbidding scrub and boulders.

Pepperrell's dispatches could not exaggerate these 'almost incredible
hardships.' Afloat and ashore, awake and asleep, the men were soaking
wet for days together. At the end of the longest haul they had nothing
but a choice of evils. They could either lie down where they were, on
hard rock or oozing bog, exposed to the enemy's fire the moment it was
light enough to see the British batteries, or they could plough their
way back to camp. Here they were safe enough from shot and shell; but,
in other respects, no better off than in the batteries. Most men's kits
were of the very scantiest. Very few had even a single change of
clothing. A good many went barefoot. Nearly all were in rags before the
siege was over.

When twenty-five pieces had been dragged up to Green Hill and its
adjoining hillocks, the bombardment at last began. The opening salvo
seemed to give the besiegers new life. No sooner was their first rough
line of investment formed than they commenced gaining ground, with a
disregard for cover which would have cost them dear if the French
practice had not been quite as bad as their own. A really wonderful
amount of ammunition was fired off on both sides without hitting
anything in particular. Louisbourg itself was, of course, too big a
target to be missed, as a rule; and the besiegers soon got so close that
they simply had to be hit themselves now and then. But, generally
speaking, it may be truthfully said that while, in an ordinary battle,
it takes a man's own weight in cartridges to kill him, in this most
extraordinary siege it took at least a horse's weight as well.

The approach to the walls defied all the usual precautions of regular
war. But the circumstances justified its boldness. With only four
thousand men at the start, with nearly half of this total on the sick
list at one rather critical juncture, with very few trained gunners, and
without any corps of engineers at all, the Provincials adapted
themselves to the situation so defiantly that they puzzled, shook, and
overawed the French, who thought them two or three times stronger than
they really were. Recklessly defiant though they were, however, they did
provide the breaching batteries with enough cover for the purpose in
hand. This is amply proved both by the fewness of their casualties and
by the evidence of Bastide, the British engineer at Annapolis, who
inspected the lines of investment on his arrival, twelve days before the
surrender, and reported them sufficiently protected.

Where the Provincials showed their 'prentice hands to genuine
disadvantage was in their absurdly solemn and utterly futile councils of
war. No schoolboys' debating club could well have done worse than the
council held to consider du Chambon's stereotyped answer to the usual
summons sent in at the beginning of a siege. The formula that 'his
cannon would answer for him' provoked a tremendous storm in the
council's teacup and immediately resulted in the following resolution:
'Advised, Unanimously, that the Towne of Louisbourg be Attacked this
Night.' But, confronted with 'a great Dissatysfaction in many of the
officers and Souldiers at the designed attack of the towne this Night,'
it was 'Advised, Unanimously,' by a second council, called in great
haste, 'that the Said Attack be deferred for the Present.' This
'Present' lasted during the rest of the siege.

Once the New Englanders had settled down, however, they wisely began to
increase their weight of metal, as well as to decrease the range at
which they used it. They set to work with a will to make a breach at the
North-West Gate of Louisbourg, near where the inner angle of the walls
abutted on the harbour; and they certainly needed all their indomitable
perseverance when it came to arming their new 'North-Western' or
'Titcomb's Battery.' The twenty-two pounders had required two hundred
men apiece. The forty-two pounders took three hundred. Two of these
unwieldy guns were hauled a couple of miles round the harbour, in the
dark, from that 'Royal Battery' which Vaughan had taken 'by the Grace of
God and the courage of 13 Men,' and then successfully mounted at
'Titcomb's,' just where they could do the greatest damage to their
former owners, the French.

Well-trained gunners were exceedingly scarce. Pepperrell could find only
six among his four thousand men. But Warren lent him three more, whom he
could ill spare, as no one knew when a fleet might come out from France.
With these nine instructors to direct them Pepperrell's men closed in
their line of fire till besieged and besiegers came within such easy
musket-shot of one another that taunting challenges and invitations
could be flung across the intervening space.

Each side claimed advantages and explained shortcomings to its own
satisfaction. A New England diarist says: 'We began our fire with as
much fury as possible, and the French returned it as warmly with Cannon,
Mortars, and continual showers of musket balls; but by 11 o'clock we had
beat them all from their guns.' A French diarist of the same day says
that the fire from the walls was stopped on purpose, chiefly to save
powder; while the same reason is assigned for the British order to cease
fire exactly one hour later.

The practice continued to be exceedingly bad on both sides; so bad,
indeed, that the New Englanders suffered more from the bursting of their
own guns than from the enemy's fire. The nine instructors could not be
everywhere; and all their good advice could not prevent the eager
amateurs from grossly overloading the double-shotted pieces. 'Another
42-pound gun burst at the Grand Battery.' 'Captain Hale is dangerously
hurt by the bursting of another gun. He was the mainstay of our gunnery
since Captain Rhodes's misfortune'--a misfortune due to the same cause.
But, in spite of all such drawbacks on the British side, Louisbourg got
much the worst of it. The French had to fire from the centre outwards,
at a semi-circle of batteries that fired back convergingly at them.
Besides, it was almost as hard to hit the thin, irregular line of
British batteries as it was to miss the deep, wide target of overcrowded
Louisbourg. The walls were continually being smashed from without and
patched up from within. The streets were ploughed from end to end. Many
houses were laid in ruins: only one remained intact when the siege was
over. The non-combatants, who now exceeded the garrison effectives, were
half buried in the smothering casemates underground; and though the
fighting men had light, air, and food enough, and though they were
losing very few in killed and wounded, they too began to feel that
Louisbourg must fall if it was not soon relieved from outside.

The British, on the contrary, grew more and more confident, both afloat
and ashore, though they had one quite alarming scare ashore. They knew
their navy outmatched the French; and they saw that, while Warren was
being strengthened, du Chambon was being left as devoid of naval force
as ever. But their still greater confidence ashore was, for the time
being, very rudely shaken when they heard that Marin, the same French
guerilla leader who had been sent down from Quebec against Annapolis
with six or seven hundred whites and Indians, had been joined by the
promised reinforcements from France and was coming to take the camp in
rear. The truth was that the reinforcements never arrived, that Marin
had failed to take Annapolis, and that there was no real danger from his
own dwindling force, even if it had tried to relieve Louisbourg in June.
But the rumour ran quickly through the whole camp, probably not without
Pepperrell's own encouragement, and at once produced, not a panic, but
the most excellent effect. Discipline, never good, had been growing
worse. Punishments were unknown. Officers and men were petitioning for
leave to go home, quite regardless of the need for their services at the
front. Demands for promotion, for extra allowances, and for increased
pay were becoming a standing nuisance. Then, just as the leaders were at
their wits' ends what to do, Marin's threatened attack came to their
aid; and their brave armed mob once more began to wear the semblance of
an army. Sentries, piquets, and outposts appeared as if by magic.
Officers went their rounds with zeal. The camp suddenly ceased to be a
disorderly playground for every one off duty. The breaching batteries
redoubled their efforts against the walls.

The threat of danger once past, however, the men soon slipped back into
their careless ways. A New England chronicler records that 'those who
were on the spot have frequently, in my hearing, laughed at the recital
of their own irregularities and expressed their admiration when they
reflected on the almost miraculous preservation of the army from
destruction.' Men off duty amused themselves with free-and-easy
musketry, which would have been all very well if there had not been such
a dearth of powder for the real thing. Races, wrestling, and quoits were
better; while fishing was highly commendable, both in the way of diet as
well as in the way of sport. Such entries as 'Thritty Lobbsters' and '6
Troutts' appear in several diaries.

Nor were other forms of gaiety forgotten. Even a Massachusetts Puritan
could recommend a sermon for general distribution in the camp because
'It will please your whole army, as it shows them the way to gain by
their gallantry the hearts and affections of the Ladys.' And even a city
of the 'Great Awakening,' like Boston, could produce a letter like the
following:

     I hope this will find you at Louisbourg with a bowl of Punch, a
     Pipe, and a Pack of Cards, and whatever else you desire. (I had
     forgot to mention a Pretty French Madammoselle.) Your Friend Luke
     has lost several Beaver Hatts already concerning the Expedition. He
     is so very zealous about it that he has turned poor Boutier out of
     his house for saying he believed you wouldn't take the Place. Damn
     his Blood, says Luke, let him be an Englishman or a Frenchman and
     not pretend to be an Englishman when he is a Frenchman in his
     Heart. If Drinking to your Success would take Cape Britton you must
     be in possession of it now, for it's a Standing Toast.

The day this letter was written in Boston, May 6, Warren had already
begun the regular blockade. Only a single ship eluded him, an ably
handled Basque, which stood in and rounded to, under the walls of
Louisbourg, after running the gauntlet of the Royal Battery, on which
the French fired with all their might to keep its own fire down. A
second vessel was forced aground. Her captain fought her to the last;
but Warren's boat crews took her. Some men who escaped from her brought
du Chambon the news that a third French ship, the _Vigilant_, was coming
to the relief of Louisbourg with ammunition and other stores. This ship
had five hundred and sixty men aboard, that is, as many as all the
regulars in Louisbourg. On May 31 the garrison heard a tremendous
cannonading out at sea. It grew in volume as Warren's squadron was seen
to surround the stranger, who was evidently making a gallant fight
against long odds. Presently it ceased; the clustered vessels parted;
spread out; and took up their stations exactly as before, except that a
new vessel was now flying the British flag. This was the _Vigilant_,
which had been put in charge of a prize crew, while her much-needed
stores had been sent in to the Provincial army.

The French in Louisbourg were naturally much discouraged to see one of
their best frigates flying the Union Jack. But they still hoped she
might not really be the anxiously expected _Vigilant_. Warren, knowing
their anxiety, determined to take advantage of it at the first
opportunity. He had not long to wait. A party of New Englanders,
wandering too far inland, were ambushed by the French Indians, who
promptly scalped all the prisoners. Warren immediately sent in a formal
protest to du Chambon, with a covering letter from the captain of the
_Vigilant_, who willingly testified to the good treatment he and his
crew were receiving on board the British men-of-war. Warren's messenger
spoke French perfectly, but he concealed his knowledge by communicating
with du Chambon through an interpreter. This put the French off their
guard and induced them to express their dismay without reserve when they
read the news about the _Vigilant_. Everything they said was of course
reported back to Warren, who immediately passed it on to Pepperrell.

Warren now thought the time had come to make a bold, decisive stroke. He
had just been reinforced by two more frigates out from England.
Titcomb's famous brace of forty-two's had just begun to hammer in the
North-West Gate of Louisbourg. Pepperrell's lines of investment were
quite complete. The chance was too tempting to let slip, especially as
it was safe strategy to get into Louisbourg before the French could be
relieved either by land or sea. Still, there was the Island Battery to
reckon with. It was full of fight, and it flanked the narrow entrance in
the most threatening way. Warren paused to consider the strength of this
last outpost of the French defences and called a council of war to help
him. For once a council favoured extreme measures; whereupon Warren sent
in word to Pepperrell, asking for 1500 Provincials, and proposing a
combined assault immediately. The plan was that Warren should sail in,
past the Island Battery, and attack the harbour face of Louisbourg with
every soldier, sailor, and ship's gun at his disposal; while Pepperrell
carried the landward face by assault. This plan might have succeeded,
though at considerable loss, if Pepperrell's whole 4000 had been
effective. But as he then had 1900 sick and wounded, and 600 guarding
his rear against the rumoured advance of Marin from Annapolis, it was
quite evident that if he gave Warren another 1500 he would have to
assault the landward face alone. Under these circumstances he very
sensibly declined to co-operate in the way Warren had suggested. But he
offered 600 men, both from his army and the transports, for the
_Vigilant_, whose prize crew would thus be released for duty aboard
their own vessels. Warren, who was just over forty, replied with some
heat. But Pepperrell, who was just under fifty, kept his temper
admirably and carried the day.

Warren, however, still urged Pepperrell to take some decisive step. Both
fleet and army agreed that a night attack on the Island Battery was the
best alternative to Warren's impracticable plan. Vaughan jumped at the
idea, hoping to repeat in another way his success against the Royal
Battery. He promised that, if he was given a free hand, he would send
Pepperrell the French flag within forty-eight hours. But Vaughan was not
to lead. The whole attack was entrusted to men who specially volunteered
for it, and who were allowed to choose their own officers. A man called
Brooks happened to be on the crest of the wave of camp popularity at the
moment; so he was elected colonel for this great occasion. The
volunteers soon began to assemble at the Royal Battery. But they came in
by driblets, and most of them were drunk. The commandant of the battery
felt far from easy. 'I doubt whether straggling fellows, three, four, or
seven out of a company, ought to go on such service. They seem to be
impatient for action. If there were a more regular appearance, it would
give me greater sattysfaction.' His misgivings were amply justified; for
the men whom Pepperrell was just beginning to form into bodies with some
kind of cohesion were once more being allowed to dissolve into the
original armed mob.

The night of June 7 was dark and calm. A little before twelve three
hundred men, wisely discarding oars, paddled out from the Royal Battery
and met another hundred who came from Lighthouse Point. The paddles took
them along in silence while they circled the island, looking for the
narrow landing-place, where only three boats could go abreast between
the destroying rocks on which the surf was breaking. Presently they
found the tiny cove, and a hundred and fifty men landed without being
discovered. But then, with incredible folly, they suddenly announced
their presence by giving three cheers. The French commandant had
cautioned his garrison to be alert, on account of the unusual darkness;
and, at this very moment, he happened himself to be pacing up and down
the rampart overlooking the spot where the volunteers were expressing
their satisfaction at having surprised him so well.

His answer was instantaneous and effective. The battery 'blazed with
cannon, swivels, and small-arms,' which fired point-blank at the men
ashore and with true aim at the boats crowded together round the narrow
landing-place. Undaunted though undisciplined, the men ashore rushed at
the walls with their scaling-ladders and began the assault. The attempt
was vain. The first men up the rungs were shot, stabbed, or cut down.
The ladders were smashed or thrown aside. Not one attacker really got
home. Meanwhile the leading boats in the little cove were being knocked
into splinters by the storm of shot. The rest sheered off. None but the
hundred and fifty men ashore were left to keep up the fight with the
garrison. For once the odds were entirely with the French, who fired
from under perfect cover, while the unfortunate Provincials fired back
from the open rocks. This exchange of shots went on till daylight, when
one hundred and nineteen Provincials surrendered at discretion. Their
total loss was one hundred and eighty-nine, nearly half the force
employed.

Despairing Louisbourg naturally made the most of this complete success.
The bells were rung and the cannon were fired to show the public joy and
to put the best face on the general situation. Du Chambon surpassed
himself in gross exaggerations. He magnified the hundred and fifty men
ashore into a thousand, and the two hundred and fifty afloat into eight
hundred; while he bettered both these statements by reporting that the
whole eighteen hundred had been destroyed except the hundred and
nineteen who had been taken prisoners.

Du Chambon's triumph was short-lived. The indefatigable Provincials
began a battery at Lighthouse Point, which commanded the island at less
than half a mile. They had seized this position some time before and
called it Gorham's Post, after the colonel whose regiment held it.
Fourteen years later there was another and more famous Gorham's Post, on
the south shore of the St Lawrence near Quebec, opposite Wolfe's Cove.
The arming of this battery was a stupendous piece of work. The guns had
to be taken round by sea, out of range of the Island Battery, hauled up
low but very dangerous cliffs, and then dragged back overland another
mile and a quarter. The directing officer was Colonel Gridley, who drew
the official British maps and plans of Louisbourg in 1745, and who,
thirty years later, traced the American defences on the slopes of
Bunker's Hill. Du Chambon had attempted to make an attack on Gorham's
Post as soon as it was established. His idea was that his men should
follow the same route as the British guns had followed--that is, that
they should run the gauntlet between the British fleet and army, land
well north of Gorham's Post, and take it by surprise from the rear. But
his detachment, which was wholly inadequate, failed to strike its blow,
and was itself very nearly cut off by Warren's guard-boats on its
crestfallen return to Louisbourg.

Gridley's Lighthouse Battery soon overmatched the Island Battery, where
powder was getting dangerously scarce. Many of the French guns were
knocked off their mountings, while the walls were breached. Finally, the
British bombardment became so effective that Frenchmen were seen
running into the water to escape the bursting shells. It was now past
the middle of June, and the siege had lasted more than a month. The
circle of fire was closing in on the beleaguered garrison. Their total
effectives had sunk to only a thousand men. This thousand laboured
harder in its losing cause than might have been expected. Perhaps the
mutineers hoped to be pardoned if they made a firm defence. Perhaps the
militia thought they ought not to be outdone by mutineers and hireling
foreigners. But, whatever the reason, great efforts were certainly made
to build up by night what the British knocked down by day. Two could
play at that game, however, and the British had the men and means to
win. Their western batteries from the land were smashing the walls into
ruins. Their Royal Battery wrecked the whole inner waterfront of
Louisbourg. Breaches were yawning elsewhere. British fascines were
visible in large quantities, ready to fill up the ditch, which was
already half full of dbris. The French scouts reported hundreds of
scaling-ladders on the reverse slopes of the nearest hillocks. Warren's
squadron had just been again reinforced, and now numbered eleven sail,
carrying 554 guns and 3000 men. There was no sign of help, by land or
sea, for shrunken, battered, and despairing Louisbourg. Food,
ammunition, stores were all running out. Moreover, the British were
evidently preparing a joint attack, which would result in putting the
whole garrison to the sword if a formal surrender should not be made in
time.

Now that the Island Battery had been silenced there was no reason why
Warren's plan should not be crowned with complete success. Accordingly
he arranged with Pepperrell to run in with the first fair wind, at the
head of the whole fleet, which, with the Provincial armed vessels, now
numbered twenty-four sail, carried 770 guns, and was manned by 4000
sailors. Half these men could be landed to attack the inner waterfront,
while Pepperrell could send another 2000 against the walls. The total
odds against Louisbourg would thus be about four to one in men and over
eight to one in guns actually engaged.

But this threatened assault was never made. In the early morning of June
27 the non-combatants in Louisbourg unanimously petitioned du Chambon to
surrender forthwith. They crept out of their underground dungeons and
gazed with mortal apprehension at the overwhelming forces that stood
arrayed against their crumbling walls and dwindling garrison. Noon came,
and their worst fears seemed about to be realized. But when the drums
began beating, it was to a parley, not to arms. A sigh of ineffable
relief went up from the whole of Louisbourg, and every eye followed the
little white flutter of the flag of truce as it neared that terrible
breaching battery opposite the West Gate. A Provincial officer came out
to meet it. The French officer and he saluted. Then both moved into the
British lines and beyond, to where Warren and Pepperrell were making
their last arrangements on Green Hill.

After a short consultation the British leaders sent in a joint reply to
say that du Chambon could have till eight the next morning to make his
proposals. These proved to be so unacceptable that Pepperrell refused to
consider them, and at once sent counter-proposals of his own. Du Chambon
had now no choice between annihilation and acceptance, so he agreed to
surrender Louisbourg the following day. He was obliged to guarantee that
none of the garrison should bear arms against the British, in any part
of the world, for a whole year. Every one in Louisbourg was of course
promised full protection for both property and person. Du Chambon's one
successful stipulation was that his troops should march out with the
honours of war, drums beating, bayonets fixed, and colours flying.
Warren and Pepperrell willingly accorded this on the 28th; and the
formal transfer took place next day, exactly seven weeks since the first
eager New Englanders had waded ashore through the thundering surf of
Gabarus Bay.

The total losses in killed and wounded were never precisely determined.
Each side minimized its own and maximized the enemy's. But as du Chambon
admitted a loss of one hundred and forty-five, and as the Provincials
claimed to have put three hundred out of action, the true number is
probably about two hundred, or just over ten per cent of the whole
garrison. The Provincials reported their own killed, quite correctly, at
a hundred. The remaining deaths, on both sides, were due to disease. The
Provincial wounded were never grouped together in any official returns.
They amounted to about three hundred. This brings the total casualties
in Pepperrell's army up to four hundred and gives the same percentage as
the French. The highest proportion of casualties among all the
different forces was the fifteen per cent lost by the French on board
the _Vigilant_ in less than five hours' fighting. The lowest was in
Warren's squadron and the Provincial Marine--about five in each. The
loss of material suffered by the French was, of course, on quite a
different scale. Every fortification and other building in Louisbourg,
with the remarkable exception of a single house, was at least partly
demolished by the nine thousand cannon balls and six hundred shells that
hit the target of a hundred acres peopled by four thousand souls.

       *       *       *       *       *

On the 29th the French marched out with the honours of war, laid down
their arms, and were put under guard as prisoners, pending their
transport to France. Du Chambon handed the keys to Pepperrell at the
South Gate. The victorious but disgusted Provincials marched in by the
West Gate, and found themselves set to protect the very houses that they
had hoped to plunder. Was it not high time to recoup themselves for
serving as soldiers at sixpence a day? Great Babylon had fallen, and
ought to be destroyed--of course, with due profit to the destroyers.
There was a regular Louisbourg legend, current in New England, that
stores of goods and money were to be found in the strong rooms of every
house. So we can understand the indignation of men whose ideas were
coloured by personal contact with smuggling and privateering, and
sometimes with downright piracy, when they were actually told off as
sentries over these mythical hoards of wealth. One diarist made the
following entry immediately after he had heard the news: 'Sabbath Day,
y^e 16th June [Old Style] they came to Termes for us to enter y^e Sitty
to morrow, and Poore Termes they Bee too.' Another added that there was
'a great Noys and hubbub a mongst y^e Solders a bout y^e Plunder: Som a
Cursing, Som a Swarein.' Five days later a third indignant Provincial
wrote: 'Y^e French keep possession yet, and we are forsed to stand at
their Dores to gard them.' Another sympathetic chronicler, after pouring
out the vials of his wrath on the clause which guaranteed the protection
of French private property, lamented that 'by these means the poor
souldiers lost all their hopes and just demerit [_sic_] of plunder
promised them.'

While Parson Moody was preaching a great thanksgiving sermon, and all
the senior officers were among his congregation, there was what
responsible officials called 'excessive stealing in every part of the
Towne.' Had this stealing really been very 'excessive' no doubt it would
have allayed the grumbling in the camp. But, as a matter of fact, there
was so little to steal that the looters began to suspect collusion
between their leaders and the French. Another fancied wrong exasperated
the Provincials at this critical time. A rumour ran through the camp
that Warren had forestalled Pepperrell by receiving the keys himself.
Warren was cursed, Pepperrell blamed; and a mutinous spirit arose. Then
it was suddenly discovered that Pepperrell had put the keys in his
pocket.

Meanwhile the fleet was making haul after haul. When Pepperrell marched
through the battered West Gate, at the head of his motley army, Warren
had led his squadron into the harbour; and both commanders had saluted
the raising of the Union Jack which marked the change of ownership. But
no sooner had the sound of guns and cheering died away than the Union
Jack was lowered and the French flag was raised again, both over the
citadel of Louisbourg and over the Island Battery. This stratagem
succeeded beyond Warren's utmost expectations. Several French vessels
were lured into Louisbourg and captured with stores and men enough to
have kept the British out for some weeks longer. Their cargoes were
worth about a million dollars. Then, just as the naval men were
wondering whether their harvest was over or not, a fine French frigate
made for the harbour quite unsuspectingly, and only discovered her fatal
mistake too late to turn back. By the irony of circumstances she
happened to be called _Notre-Dame de la Dlivrance_. Among her
passengers was the distinguished man of science, Don Antonio de Ulloa,
on his way to Paris, with all the results of those explorations in South
America which he afterwards embodied in a famous book of travel. Warren
treated him with the greatest courtesy and promised that all his
collections should be duly forwarded to the Royal Academy of Sciences.
Once this exchange of international amenities had been ended, however,
the usual systematic search began. The visible cargo was all cocoa. But
hidden underneath were layers and layers of shining silver dollars from
Peru; and, underneath this double million, another two million dollars'
worth of ingots of silver and ingots of gold.

The contrast between the poverty of Louisbourg, where so much had been
expected, and the rich hauls of prize-money made by the fleet, was gall
and wormwood to the Provincials. But their resentment was somewhat
tempered by Warren's genial manner towards them. Warren was at home with
all sorts and conditions of men. His own brother-officers, statesmen and
courtiers, distinguished strangers like Ulloa, and colonial merchants
like Pepperrell, were equally loud in his praise. With the lesser and
much more easily offended class of New Englanders found in the
ranks he was no less popular. A rousing speech, in which he praised
the magnificently stubborn work accomplished by 'my wife's
fellow-countrymen,' a hearty generosity all round, and a special
hogshead of the best Jamaica rum for the garrison of the Royal Battery,
won him a great deal of goodwill, in spite of the fact that his
'Admiral's eighth' of the naval prize-money amounted to some sixty
thousand pounds, while Pepperrell found himself ten thousand pounds out
of pocket at the end of the siege.

Pepperrell, however, was a very rich man, for those colonial days; and
he could well afford to celebrate the fall of Louisbourg by giving the
chief naval and military officers a dinner, the fame of which will
never fade away from some New England memories. Everything went off
without a hitch. But, as the hour approached, there was a growing
anxiety, on the part of both host and guests, as to whether or not the
redoubtable Parson Moody would keep them listening to his grace till all
the meats got cold. He was well known for the length, as well as for the
strength, of his discourses. He had once denounced the Devil in a grace
of forty minutes. So what was the surprised delight of his
fellow-revellers when he hardly kept them standing longer than as many
seconds. 'Good Lord!' he said, 'we have so much to thank Thee for, that
Time will be too short. Therefore we must leave it for Eternity. Bless
our food and fellowship on this joyful occasion, for the sake of Christ
our Lord. Amen!'

News of the victory was sent at once to Boston. The vessel bearing it
arrived in the middle of the night. But long before the summer sun was
up the streets were filled with shouts of triumph, while the church
bells rang in peals of exultation, and all the guns and muskets in the
place were fired as fast as men could load them.

The mother country's joy was less exuberant. There were so many other
things to think of nearer home; among them the British defeat at
Fontenoy and the landing of the Young Pretender. Nor was the actual
victory without alloy; for prescient people feared that a practically
independent colonial army had been encouraged to become more independent
still. And who can say the fear was groundless? Louisbourg really did
serve to blood New Englanders for Bunker's Hill. But, in spite of this
one drawback, the news was welcomed, partly because any victory was
welcome at such a time, and partly because the fall of Louisbourg was a
signal assertion of British sea-power on both sides of the Atlantic.

London naturally made overmuch of Warren's share, just as Boston made
overmuch of Pepperrell's. But the Imperial government itself perfectly
understood that the fleet and the army were each an indispensable half
of one co-operating whole. Warren was promoted rear-admiral of the blue,
the least that could be given him. Pepperrell received much higher
honours. He was made a baronet and, like Shirley, was given the
colonelcy of a regiment which was to bear his name. Such 'colonelcies'
do not imply the actual command of men, but are honorary distinctions
of which even kings and conquerors are proud. Nor was the Provincial
Marine forgotten. Rous, of the _Shirley_, was sent to England with
dispatches, and was there made a post-captain in the Royal Navy for his
gallantry in action against the _Vigilant_. He afterwards enjoyed a
distinguished career and died an admiral. It was in his ship, the
_Sutherland_, that Wolfe wrote the final orders for the Battle of the
Plains fourteen years after this first siege of Louisbourg.




CHAPTER III

THE LINK RECOVERED

1748


Louisbourg was the most thoroughly hated place in all America. The
French government hated it as Napoleon hated the Peninsula, because it
was a drain on their resources. The British government hated it because
it cut into their oversea communications. The American colonists hated
it because it was a standing menace to their ambitious future. And every
one who had to live in it--no matter whether he was French or British,
European or American, naval or military, private or official--hated it
as only exiles can.

But perhaps even exiled Frenchmen detested it less heartily than the
disgusted Provincials who formed its garrison from the summer of 1745 to
the spring of the following year. Warren and Pepperrell were obliged to
spend half their time in seeing court-martial justice done. The
bluejackets fretted for some home port in which to enjoy their plentiful
prize-money. The Provincials fretted for home at any cost. They were
angry at being kept on duty at sixpence a day after the siege was over.
They chafed against the rules about looting, as well as against what
they thought the unjust difference between the million sterling that had
been captured at sea, under full official sanction, and the ridiculous
collection of odds and ends that could be stolen on land, at the risk of
pains and penalties. Imagine the rage of the sullen Puritan, even if he
had a sense of humour, when, after hearing a bluejacket discussing plans
for spending a hundred golden guineas, he had to make such entries in
his diary as these of Private Benjamin Crafts: _'Saturday._ Rec^d a
half-pint of Rum to Drinke y^e King's Health. The Lord look upon Us and
prepare us for His Holy Day. _Sunday._ Blessed be the Lord that has
given us to enjoy another Sabath. _Monday._ Last Night I was taken verry
Bad. The Lord be pleased to strengthen my Inner Man. May we all be
Prepared for his Holy Will. Rec^d part of Plunder--9 Small tooth
combs.'

No wonder there was trouble in plenty. The routine of a small and
uncongenial station is part of a regular's second nature, though a very
disagreeable part. But it maddens militiamen when the stir of active
service is past and they think they are being kept on such duty
overtime. The Massachusetts men had the worst pay and the best
ringleaders, so they were the first to break out openly. One morning
they fell in without their officers, marched on to the general parade,
and threw their muskets down. This was a dramatic but ineffectual form
of protest, because nearly all the muskets were the private property of
the men themselves, who soon came back to take their favourite weapons
up again. One of their most zealous chaplains, however, was able to
enter in his diary, perhaps not without a qualm, but certainly not
without a proper pride in New England spirit, the remark of a naval
officer 'that he had thought the New England men were cowards--But that
Now he thought that if they had a Pick ax and Spade they would digg y^e
way to Hell and storm it.'

The only relief from the deadly monotony and loneliness of Louisbourg
was to be found in the bad bargains and worse entertainment offered by
the camp-followers, who quickly gathered, like a flock of vultures, to
pick the carcass to the bone. There were few pickings to be had, but
these human parasites held on until the bones were bare. Of course, they
gave an inordinate amount of trouble. They always do. But well-organized
armies keep them in their place; while militiamen can not.

Between the camp-followers and the men Pepperrell was almost driven mad.
He implored Shirley to come and see things for himself. Shirley came. He
arrived at the end of August accompanied both by his own wife and by
Warren's. He delivered a patriotic speech, in which he did not stint his
praise of what had really been a great and notable achievement. His
peroration called forth some genuine enthusiasm. It began with a promise
to raise the pay of the Massachusetts contingent by fifteen shillings a
month, and ended with free rum all round and three cheers for the king.
The prospect thereupon brightened a little. The mutineers kept quiet for
several days, and a few men even agreed to re-enlist until the following
June. Shirley was very much pleased with the immediate result, and still
more pleased with himself. His next dispatch assured the Duke of
Newcastle that nobody else could have quelled the incipient mutiny so
well. Nor was the boast, in one sense, vain, since nobody else had the
authority to raise the men's pay.

But discontent again became rife when it began to dawn on the
Provincials that they would have to garrison Louisbourg till the next
open season. The unwelcome truth was that, except for a few raw
recruits, no reliefs were forthcoming from any quarter. The promised
regulars had left Gibraltar so late that they had to be sent to Virginia
for the winter, lest the sudden change to cold and clammy Louisbourg
should put them on the sick list. The two new regiments, Shirley's and
Pepperrell's, which were to be recruited in the American colonies and
form part of the Imperial Army, could not be raised in time. There even
seemed to be some doubt as to whether they could be raised at all. The
absence of Pepperrell from New England, the hatred of garrison duty in
Louisbourg, and resentment at seeing some Englishmen commissioned to
command Americans, were three great obstacles in the way. The only other
resource was the colonial militia, whose waifs and strays alone could
be induced to enlist.

Thus, once the ice began to form, the despairing Provincial garrison saw
there could be no escape. The only discharge was death. What were then
known as camp fevers had already broken out in August. As many as
twenty-seven funerals in a single day passed by the old lime-kiln on the
desolate point beyond the seaward walls of Louisbourg. 'After we got
into the Towne, a sordid indolence or Sloth, for want of Discipline,
induced putrid fevers and dyssentrys, which at length became contagious,
and the people died like rotten sheep.' Medical men were ignorant and
few. Proper attendance was wholly lacking. But the devotion of the
Puritan chaplains, rivalling that of the early Jesuits, ran through
those awful horrors like a thread of gold. Here is a typical entry of
one day's pastoral care: 'Prayed at Hospital. Prayed at Citadel.
Preached at Grand Batery. Visited [a long list of names] all verry Sick.
[More names] Dy'd. Am but poorly myself, but able to keep about.'

No survivor ever forgot the miseries of that dire winter in cold and
clammy Louisbourg. When April brought the Gibraltar regiments from
Virginia, Pepperrell sent in to Shirley his general report on the three
thousand men with whom he had begun the autumn. Barely one thousand were
fit for duty. Eleven hundred lay sick and suffering in the ghastly
hospital. Eight hundred and ninety lay buried out on the dreary tongue
of land between the lime-pit and the fog-bound, ice-encumbered sea.

       *       *       *       *       *

Warren took over the command of all the forces, as he had been appointed
governor of Louisbourg by the king's commission. Shirley had meanwhile
been revolving new plans, this time for the complete extirpation of the
French in Canada during the present summer of 1746. He suggested that
Warren should be the naval joint commander, and Warren, of course, was
nothing loth.

Massachusetts again rose grandly to the situation. She voted 3500 men,
with a four pound sterling bounty to each one of them. New Hampshire,
Connecticut, and Rhode Island followed well. New York and New Jersey did
less in proportion. Maryland did less still. Virginia would only pass a
lukewarm vote for a single hundred men. Pennsylvania, as usual, refused
to do anything at all. The legislature was under the control of the
Quakers, who, when it came to war, were no better than parasites upon
the body politic. They never objected to enjoying the commercial
benefits of conquest; any more than they objected to living on land
which could never have been either won or held without the arms they
reprobated. But their principles forbade them to face either the danger
or expense of war. The honour of the other Pennsylvanians was, however,
nobly saved by a contingent of four hundred, raised as a purely private
venture. Altogether, the new Provincial army amounted to over 8000 men.

The French in Canada were thoroughly alarmed. Rumour had magnified the
invading fleet and army till, in July, the Acadians reported the
combined forces, British regulars included, at somewhere between forty
and fifty thousand. But the alarm proved groundless. The regulars were
sent on an abortive expedition against the coast of France, while the
Duke of Newcastle ordered Shirley to discharge the 'very expensive'
Provincials, who were now in Imperial pay, 'as cheap as possible.' This
was then done, to the intense disgust of the colonies concerned. New
York and Massachusetts, however, were so loth to give up without
striking a single blow that they raised a small force, on their own
account, to take Crown Point and gain control of Lake Champlain.[2]

Before October came the whole of the colonies were preparing for a quiet
winter, except that it was to be preceded by the little raid on Crown
Point, when, quite suddenly, astounding news arrived from sea. This was
that the French had sent out a regular armada to retake Louisbourg and
harry the coast to the south. Every ship brought in further and still
more alarming particulars. The usual exaggerations gained the usual
credence. But the real force, if properly handled and combined, was
dangerous enough. It consisted of fourteen sail of the line and
twenty-one frigates, with transports carrying over three thousand
veteran troops; altogether, about 17,000 men, or more than twice as many
as those in the contingents lately raised for taking Canada.

[Footnote 2: An account of this expedition will be found in chapter ii
of _The War Chief of the Six Nations_ in this Series.]

New York and Massachusetts at once recalled their Crown Point
expeditions. Boston was garrisoned by 8000 men. All the provinces did
their well-scared best. There was no danger except along the coast; for
there were enough armed men to have simply mobbed to death any three
thousand Frenchmen who marched into the hostile continent, which would
engulf them if they lost touch with the fleet, and wear them out if they
kept communications open. Those who knew anything of war knew this
perfectly well; and they more than half suspected that the French force
had been doubled or trebled by the panic-mongers. But the panic spread,
and spread inland, for all that. No British country had ever been so
thoroughly alarmed since England had watched the Great Armada sailing up
the Channel.

The poets and preachers quickly changed their tune. _Ames's Almanac_ for
1746 had recently edified Bostonians with a song of triumph over fallen
Louisbourg:

    Bright Hesperus, the Harbinger of Day,
    Smiled gently down on Shirley's prosperous sway,
    The Prince of Light rode in his burning car,
    To see the overtures of Peace and War
    Around the world, and bade his charioteer,
    Who marks the periods of each month and year,
    Rein in his steeds, and rest upon High Noon
    To view our Victory over Cape Brittoon.

But now the Reverend Thomas Prince's litany, rhymed by a later bard,
summed up the gist of all the supplications that ascended from the
Puritans:

    O Lord! We would not advise;
    But if, in Thy Providence,
    A Tempest should arise,
    To drive the French fleet hence,
    And scatter it far and wide,
    Or sink it in the sea,
    We should be satisfied,
    And Thine the Glory be.

Strange to say, this pious suggestion had been mostly answered before it
had been made. Disaster after disaster fell upon the doomed French fleet
from the very day it sailed. The admiral was the Duc d'Anville, one of
the illustrious La Rochefoucaulds, whose family name is known wherever
French is read. He was not wanting either in courage or good sense; but,
like his fleet, he had little experience at sea. The French ships, as
usual, were better than the British. But the French themselves were a
nation of landsmen. They had no great class of seamen to draw upon at
will, a fact which made an average French crew inferior to an average
British one. This was bad enough. But the most important point of all
was that their fleets were still worse than their single ships. The
British always had fleets at sea, constantly engaged in combined
manoeuvres. The French had not; and, in face of the British command of
the sea, they could not have them. The French harbours were watched so
closely that the French fleets were often attacked and defeated before
they had begun to learn how to work together. Consequently, they found
it still harder to unite two different fleets against their almost
ubiquitous enemy.

D'Anville's problem was insoluble from the start. Four large men-of-war
from the West Indies were to join him at Chibucto Bay, now the harbour
of Halifax, under Admiral Conflans, the same who was defeated by Hawke
in Quiberon Bay thirteen years later, on the very day that Wolfe was
buried. Each contributory part of the great French naval plan failed in
the working out. D'Anville's command was a collection of ships, not a
coordinated fleet. The French dockyards had been neglected; so some of
the ships were late, which made it impossible to practise manoeuvres
before sailing for the front. Then, in the bungling hurry of fitting
out, the hulls of several vessels were left foul, which made them dull
sailers; while nearly all the holds were left unscoured, which, of
course, helped to propagate the fevers, scurvy, plague, and pestilence
brought on by bad food badly stowed. Nor was this all. Officers who had
put in so little sea time with working fleets were naturally slack and
inclined to be discontented. The fact that they were under sealed
orders, which had been communicated only to d'Anville, roused their
suspicions; while his weakness in telling them they were bound for
Louisbourg almost produced a mutiny.

The fleet left France at midsummer, had a very rough passage through the
Bay of Biscay, and ran into a long, dead calm off the Azores. This ended
in a storm, during which several vessels were struck by lightning,
which, in one case, caused a magazine explosion that killed and wounded
over thirty men. It was not till the last week of September that
d'Anville made the excellently safe harbour of Halifax. The four ships
under Conflans were nowhere to be seen. They had reached the rendezvous
at the beginning of the month, had cruised about for a couple of weeks,
and had then gone home. D'Anville was now in no position to attack
Louisbourg, much less New England. Some of his vessels were quite
unserviceable. There was no friendly port nearer than Quebec. All his
crews were sickly; and the five months' incessant and ever-increasing
strain had changed him into a broken-hearted man. He died very suddenly,
in the middle of the night; some said from a stroke of apoplexy, while
others whispered suicide.

His successor, d'Estournel, summoned a council of war, which overruled
the plan for an immediate return to France. Presently a thud, followed
by groans of mortal agony, was heard in the new commander's cabin. The
door was burst open, and he was found dying from the thrust of his own
sword. La Jonquire, afterwards governor-general of Canada, thereupon
succeeded d'Estournel. This commander, the third within three days, was
an excellent naval officer and a man of strong character. He at once set
to work to reorganize the fleet. But reorganization was now impossible.
Storms wrecked the vessels. The plague killed off the men: nearly three
thousand had died already. Only a single thousand, one-tenth of the
survivors, were really fit for duty. Yet La Jonquire still persisted in
sailing for Annapolis. One vessel was burned, while four others were
turned into hospital ships, which trailed astern, dropping their dead
overside, hour after hour, as they went.

But Annapolis was never attacked. The dying fleet turned back and at
last reached Port Louis, on the coast of Brittany. There it found _La
Palme_, a frigate long since given up for lost, lying at anchor, after a
series of adventures that seem wellnigh impossible. First her crew's
rations had been cut down to three ounces a day. Then the starving men
had eaten all the rats in her filthy hold; and when rats failed they had
proposed to eat their five British prisoners. The captain did his best
to prevent this crowning horror. But the men, who were now ungovernable,
had already gone below to cut up one prisoner into three-ounce rations,
when they were brought on deck again, just in time, by the welcome cry
of _sail-ho_! The Portuguese stranger fortunately proved to have some
sheep, which were instantly killed and eaten raw.

News of these disasters to the French arms at length reached the anxious
British colonies. The militia were soon discharged. The danger seemed
past. And the whole population spent a merrier Christmas than any one of
them had dared to hope for.

In May of the next year, 1747, La Jonquire again sailed for Louisbourg.
But when he was only four days out he was overtaken off Cape Finisterre
by a superior British fleet, under Anson and Warren, and was totally
defeated, after a brave resistance.

In 1748 the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle gave Louisbourg back to the
French. The British colonies were furious, New England particularly so.
But the war at large had not gone severely enough against the French to
force them to abandon a stronghold on which they had set their hearts,
and for which they were ready to give up any fair equivalent. The
contemporary colonial sneer, often repeated since, and quite commonly
believed, was that 'the important island of Cape Breton was exchanged
for a petty factory in India.' This was not the case. Every power was
weary of the war. But France was ready to go on with it rather than give
up her last sea link with Canada. Unless this one point was conceded the
whole British Empire would have been involved in another vast, and
perhaps quite barren, campaign. The only choice the British negotiators
could apparently make was a choice between two evils. And of the two
they chose the less.




CHAPTER IV

LOST FOR EVER

1758


The ten years of the second French rgime in Louisbourg were divided
into very different halves. During the first five years, from 1749 to
1753, the mighty rivals were as much at peace, all over their
conflicting frontiers, as they ever had been in the past. But from 1754
to 1758 a great and, this time, a decisive war kept drawing continually
nearer, until its strangling coils at last crushed Louisbourg to death.

Three significant events marked 1749, the first of the five peaceful
years. Louisbourg was handed over to its new French garrison; the
British founded Halifax; and the Imperial government indemnified New
England in full for the siege of 1745. Halifax was intended partly as a
counterpoise to Louisbourg, and partly as a _place-d'armes_ for one of
the two local footholds of British sea-power, Nova Scotia and
Newfoundland, which, between them, narrowed the French line of
communication with Canada into a single precarious strait. The New
England indemnity was meant, in the first instance, to be a payment for
service done. But it was also intended to soften colonial resentment at
the giving up of Louisbourg. A specially gracious royal message was sent
to 'The Council and Assembly' of Massachusetts, assuring them, 'in His
Majesty's name, that their conduct will always entitle them, in a
particular manner, to his Royal favour and protection.' This message,
however, did not reconcile the Provincial army to the disappointment of
their own expectations. Nor did it dispose the colonies in general to be
any the more amenable to government from London. They simply regarded
the indemnity as the skinflint payment of an overdue debt, and the
message as no more than the thanks they had well deserved. But the money
was extremely welcome to people who would have been bankrupt without it.
Nearly a quarter of a million sterling was sent out in 217 cases of
Spanish dollars and 100 barrels of coppers, which were driven through
the streets of Boston in 27 trucks.

The next three years in Louisbourg were completely uneventful. The town
resumed its former life, but in a still more makeshift fashion. Nobody
knew how long the truce would last; and nobody wanted to take root
commercially in a place that might experience another violent change at
any time. Nevertheless, smuggling flourished as vigorously as before.
British shipping did most of it. Many vessels came from England, many
from Boston, some, and very active ones, from Halifax. Joshua Mauger
smuggled from France to Louisbourg, from Louisbourg to 'Mauger's Beach'
near Halifax, and from Halifax all over Acadia and the adjacent
colonies. He also supplied the Micmacs with scalping-knives and
tomahawks for use against his own countrymen. He died, a very rich man,
in England, leaving his fortune to his daughter, who, with her
spendthrift husband, the Duc de Bouillon, was guillotined during the
French Revolution.

The officials were naturally affected by the same uncertainty, which
made them more than ever determined to get rich and go home. The
intendant Bigot was promoted to Quebec, there to assist his country's
enemies by the worst corruption ever known in Canada. But the new
intendant, Prvost, though a man of very inferior talent, did his best
to follow Bigot's lead.

French regulars still regarded the Louisbourg routine as their most
disgusting duty. But it became more tolerable with the increase of the
garrison. The fortifications were examined, reported on, repaired, and
extended. The engineers, like all the other Frenchmen connected with
unhappy Louisbourg, Bigot alone excepted, were second-and third-rate
men; and the actual work was done as badly as before. But, on the whole,
the place was strengthened, especially by a battery near the lighthouse.
With this and the Island Battery, one on either side of the narrow
entrance, which the Royal Battery faced directly, almost a hundred guns
could be brought to bear on any vessels trying to force their way in.

The end of the five years' truce was marked by voluminous reports and
elaborate arguments to prove how well Louisbourg was being governed, how
admirably the fortifications had been attended to (with the inadequate
means at the intendant's disposal), and how desirable it was, from every
point of view, for the king to spend a great deal more money all round
in the immediate future. Fisheries, shipbuilding, fortification,
Indians, trade, religion, the naval and military situation, were all
represented as only needing more money to become quite perfect.
Louisbourg was correctly enough described as an indispensable link
between France and the long chain of French posts in the valleys of the
Mississippi and the St Lawrence. But less well explained in America and
less well understood in Europe was the fact that the separate military
chains in Old France and New could never hold an oversea dominion unless
a naval chain united them. Some few Frenchmen understood this
thoroughly. But most did not. And France, as a whole, hoped that a
vigorous offensive on land would more than counterbalance whatever she
might lose by an enforced defensive on the sea.

       *       *       *       *       *

In 1754 Washington's first shot beyond the Alleghanies broke the hollow
truce between the French and British colonies, whose lines of expansion
had once more inevitably crossed each other's path. This proved to be
the beginning of the last 'French and Indian War' in American history,
of that 'British Conquest of Canada' which formed part of what
contemporary Englishmen called the 'Maritime War,' and of that great
military struggle which continental Europe called the 'Seven Years'
War.'

The year 1755 saw Braddock's Defeat in the west, the battle of Lake
George in the centre, and two pregnant events in the east, one on either
side of Louisbourg--the expulsion of the Acadians, and the capture by
Boscawen of two French men-of-war with several hundred soldiers who were
to reinforce the army that was soon to be commanded by Montcalm.

The next year, 1756, saw the formal declaration of war in Europe, its
continued prosecution in America, and the taking of Oswego, which was
the first of Montcalm's four victories against the overwhelming British.
But Louisbourg still remained untouched.

       *       *       *       *       *

Not till 1757 was the first attempt made to break this last sea link
with France. There was a very natural anxiety, among the British on both
sides of the Atlantic, to do conspicuously well against Louisbourg. Fort
Necessity, Braddock's Defeat, and Montcalm's daring capture of Oswego,
coming with cumulative effect, in three successive campaigns, had
created a feeling of bitter disappointment in America; while the Black
Hole of Calcutta, the loss of Minorca, and, worse still, Byng's failure
to bring a British fleet into decisive action, had wounded the national
pride in England.

But 1757 turned out to be no better than its disconcerting predecessors.
True, England's ally, Frederick the Great, won consummate victories at
Rossbach and at Leuthen. But that was at the end of a very desperate
campaign. True, also, that Clive won Plassey and took Chandernagore. But
those were far away from English-speaking homes; while heavy reverses
close at hand brought down the adverse balance. Pitt, the greatest of
all civilian ministers of War, was dismissed from office and not
reinstated till the British Empire had been without a cabinet for eleven
weeks. The French overran the whole of Hanover and rounded up the Duke
of Cumberland at Kloster-Seven. Mordaunt and his pettifogging councils
of war turned the joint expedition against Rochefort into a complete
fiasco; while Montcalm again defeated the British in America by taking
Fort William Henry.

The taking of Louisbourg would have been a very welcome victory in the
midst of so much gloom. But the British were engaged in party strife at
home. They were disunited in America. And neither the naval nor the
military leader of the joint expedition against Louisbourg was the
proper man to act either alone or with his colleague. Speed was of prime
importance. Yet Admiral Holbourne did not sail from England for Halifax
till May. General the Earl of Loudoun was slower yet. He drew in the
troops from the northern frontier, concentrated them in New York, and
laid an embargo on shipping to keep a secret which was already out.
Finally, he and Sir Charles Hardy sailed for Halifax to keep their
rendezvous with Holbourne, from whom no news had come. They arrived
there before him; but his fleet came limping in during the next ten
days, after a bad buffeting on its transatlantic voyage.

Loudoun now had nearly 12,000 men, whom he landed and drilled throughout
July. His preparations were so meticulously careful that they even
included a vegetable garden, which, though an excellent precaution in
its own way, ought to have been left to the commandant of the base. So
thought Sir Charles Hay, who was put under arrest for saying that all
the money was being spent in fighting sham battles and planting out
cabbages. However, a reconnaissance of Louisbourg had been made by
Gorham of the Rangers, whose very imperfect report induced Holbourne and
Loudoun to get ready to sail. But, just as they were preparing to begin,
too late, a Newfoundland vessel came in with captured French dispatches
which showed that Admiral La Motte had united his three squadrons in
Louisbourg harbour, where he was at anchor with twenty-two ships of the
line and several frigates, the whole carrying 1360 guns. This was
correct. But the garrison was exaggerated by at least a third in the
same dispatch, which estimated it as numbering over 7000 men.

The lateness of the season, the strength of the French, and the
practical certainty of failing to take Louisbourg by forcing the attack
home at any cost, were very sensibly held, under existing circumstances,
to be sufficient cause for withdrawing the army. The fleet, however,
sailed north, in the hope of inducing La Motte to come out for a battle
in the open. But, at that particular juncture, La Motte was right not to
risk decisive action. A week later he was equally wrong to refuse it.
Holbourne's fleet had been dispersed by a September hurricane of
extraordinary violence. One ship became a total wreck. Nine were
dismasted. Several had to throw their guns overboard. None was fit for
immediate service. But La Motte did not even reconnoitre, much less
annihilate, his helpless enemy.

       *       *       *       *       *

Pitt returned to power at the end of June 1757, in time to plan a
world-wide campaign for 1758, though not in time to choose the best
commanders and to change the whole course of the war. This became
possible only in the Empire Year of 1759. The English-speaking peoples
have nearly always begun their great wars badly, and have gradually
worked up to a climax of victory after being stung into proper
leadership and organization by several exasperating failures; and though
now in the third year of their most momentous struggle for oversea
dominion, they were not even yet altogether prepared.

Nevertheless, Pitt wielded the amphibious might of Britain with a master
hand. Sea-power, mercantile and naval, enabled him to 'command the
riches of the world' and become the paymaster of many thousand
Prussians under Frederick the Great and Ferdinand of Brunswick. He also
sent a small British army to the Continent. But he devoted his chief
attention to working out a phase of the 'Maritime War' which included
India on one flank and the Canadian frontiers on the other. Sometimes
with, and sometimes without, a contingent from the Army, the British
Navy checkmated, isolated, or defeated the French in Europe, Asia,
Africa, and America.

The preliminary isolation of Louisbourg was a particularly effective
stroke of naval strategy. Even before 1758 began the first French fleet
that left for Louisbourg had been shadowed from Toulon and had been shut
up in Cartagena. A second French fleet was then sent to help the first
one out. But it was attacked on the way and totally defeated. In April
the first fleet made another attempt to sail; but it was chased into
Rochefort by Hawke and put out of action for the rest of the campaign.
The third French fleet did manage to reach Louisbourg. But its admiral,
du Chaffault, rightly fearing annihilation in the harbour there, and
wishing to keep some touch between Old France and New, sailed for Quebec
with most of his best ships.

Quebec and the rest of Canada were themselves on the defensive; for
Abercromby was leading 15,000 men--the largest single army America had
ever seen--straight up the line of Lake Champlain. Montcalm defeated him
at Ticonderoga in July. But that gave no relief to Louisbourg; because
the total British forces threatening the Canadian inland frontier were
still quite strong enough to keep the French on the strict defensive.

       *       *       *       *       *

Thus Louisbourg was completely isolated, both by land and sea. It was
stronger and more extensive than during the first siege. It had a better
governor, Drucour, a better and a larger garrison, more food and
ammunition, and, what it formerly lacked altogether, the support of a
considerable fleet. Drucour was a gallant soldier. His garrison numbered
nearly 3000 effective regulars, with about 1000 militiamen and some 500
Indians. Seventeen mortars and over two hundred cannon were mounted on
the walls, as well as on the outworks at the Royal, Island, and
Lighthouse Batteries. There were thirteen vessels in the fleet, mounting
590 guns, and carrying over 3500 men. This made the French grand total
about 800 guns and 8000 men. But not all these were really effective.
Ships at anchor lose a good deal of their fighting value. Crews are less
efficient when ashore than when they are afloat; and the French ships
were mostly fought at anchor, while the crews were gradually landed for
the defence of the crowded little town. Then, the Indians were
comparatively useless in a fort. The militia were not good soldiers
anywhere. Moreover, the three kinds of regulars--French, Canadian, and
foreign--did not get on very well together; while the fleet, as a whole,
got on no better with the army as a whole.

The British amphibious force presented a striking contrast to this. Its
naval and military parts worked together like the two branches of one
United Service. The Army and Navy naturally understood each other better
than the two services of less amphibious countries; and when a statesman
like Pitt and a first lord of the Admiralty like Anson were together at
headquarters there was no excuse for misunderstandings at the front.
Boscawen and Amherst, both distinguished members of distinguished
Service families, were the best of colleagues. Boscawen had somewhat
over, Amherst a little under, 12,000 men. Boscawen's fleet comprised 39
sail, from a 90-gun ship of the line down to a 12-gun sloop. The
British grand total therefore exceeded Drucour's by over three to one,
counting mere numbers alone. If expert efficiency be taken, for the sake
of a more exact comparison, it is not too much to say that the odds in
favour of the British personnel and armament were really four to one.

[Illustration: EDWARD BOSCAWEN
From the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds]

On the other hand, the French had the walls of Louisbourg to redress the
balance in their favour. These walls were the crucial factor in the
problem. Both sides knew they were far from being impregnable. But how
long could they withstand a regular siege? If for only one month, then
they were useless as a protection to Quebec. If for two months, then
Quebec and New France were safe until the following year.

       *       *       *       *       *

Boscawen left England in February. Amherst followed separately. One of
the three brigadier-generals in Amherst's army was Wolfe, of whom we
shall hear more presently. The rendezvous was Halifax, where boat work
and landing exercises were sedulously carried out by the troops. Towards
the end of May Boscawen sailed out of Halifax, though Amherst had not
yet arrived. They met at sea. The _Dublin_, which had brought Amherst
across so slowly, then 'went very sickly into Halifax,' while Amherst
joined Boscawen, and the whole fleet and convoy bore away for
Louisbourg. The French had been expecting them for at least a month; as
scouts kept appearing almost every day, while Hardy's squadron of nine
sail had been maintaining a sort of open blockade.

On the night of June 1 the French look-outs in Gabarus Bay saw more
lights than usual to the southward. Next morning Louisbourg was early
astir, anxiously eager to catch the first glimpse of this great
destroying armada, which for several expectant hours lay invisible and
dread behind a curtain of dense fog. Then a light sea breeze came in
from the Atlantic. The curtain drew back at its touch. And there, in one
white, enormous crescent, all round the deep-blue offing, stood the
mighty fleet, closing in for the final death-grip on its prey.

       *       *       *       *       *

Nearly a whole week went by before the British landed. Each day the
scouting boats and vessels stood in as close as possible along the
shore. But they always found the smashing surf too high. At last, on the
8th, the whole army put off in three brigades of boats, supported by
the frigates, which fired at the French defences. All three
landing-places were threatened simultaneously, White Point, Flat Point,
and Kennington Cove. These landing-places were, respectively, one, two,
and four miles west of Louisbourg. The intervening ground mostly hid
them from the ramparts, and they had to depend upon their own defences.
Drucour had sent out two-thirds of his garrison to oppose the landing.
Each point was protected by artillery and entrenchments. Eight guns were
mounted and a thousand men stood guard over the quarter-mile of beach
which lay between the two little surf-lashed promontories of Kennington
Cove. But Wolfe's brigade made straight for shore. The French held their
fire until the leading boats were well within short musket-shot. Then
they began so furiously that Wolfe, whose tall, lank figure was most
conspicuous as he stood up in the stern-sheets, waved his cane to make
the boats sheer off.

It looked as if the first successful landing would have to be made
elsewhere, a bitter disappointment to this young and ardent brigadier,
whose command included the pick of the grenadiers, light infantry, and
Highlanders. But three boatloads of light infantry pushed on against the
inner point of the cove. Perhaps their officers turned their blind eye
on Wolfe's signal, as Nelson did on Parker's recall at Copenhagen. But,
whatever the reason, these three boats went in smash against the rocks
and put their men ashore, drenched to the skin. Major Scott, commanding
the light infantry and rangers, followed them at once. Then Wolfe,
seeing they had gained a foothold where the point afforded them a little
cover, signalled the whole brigade to land there in succession. He
pushed his own boat through, jumped in waist-deep, and waded ashore.

This sudden change, quite unexpected by either friend or foe, greatly
disconcerted the French. They attacked Major Scott, who withstood them
with a handful of men till reinforcements came clambering up the rocks
behind him. With these reinforcements came Wolfe, who formed the men
into line and carried the nearest battery with the bayonet. The
remaining French, seeing that Wolfe had effected a lodgment on their
inner flank, were so afraid of being cut off from Louisbourg that they
ran back and round towards the next position at Flat Point. But before
they reached it they saw its own defenders running back, because the
British were also landing at White Point. Here too the defences were
abandoned as soon as the little garrison found itself faced by greatly
superior numbers afloat and deserted by its fellow-garrisons ashore. The
retreating French kept up a sort of running fight till they got under
the covering fire of Louisbourg, when the pursuing British immediately
drew off.

Considering the number of boats that were stove and the intensity of the
first French fire, the British loss was remarkably small, only one
hundred and nine killed, wounded, and drowned. The French loss was still
less; but, in view of the difference between the respective grand
totals, it was a good deal heavier in proportion.

That night the glare of a big fire inside the harbour showed that
Drucour felt too weak to hold the Royal Battery. Unlike his incompetent
predecessor, however, he took away everything movable that could be
turned to good account in Louisbourg; and he left the works a useless
ruin. The following day he destroyed and abandoned the battery at
Lighthouse Point. Thus two fortifications were given up, one of them
for the second time, before a single shot had been fired either from or
against them. Time, labour, and expense had all gone for worse than
nothing, as the positions were at once used by the enemy on each
occasion. The wasted expense was of the usual kind--one half spent on
inferior construction, the other pocketed by the Louisbourg officials.
Drucour himself was not at all to blame, either for the way the works
were built or the way in which they had to be abandoned. With odds of
more than three to one against him, he had no men to spare for trying to
keep the British at arm's length.

[Illustration: JAMES WOLFE
From the painting by Highmore]

Amherst pitched his camp in a crescent two miles long, facing Louisbourg
two miles off. His left overlooked the French squadron in the south-west
harbour next to Louisbourg at the distance of a mile. His right rested
on Flat Point. Thus Louisbourg itself was entirely surrounded both by
land and sea; for the gaps left at the Royal Battery and Lighthouse
Point were immediately seized by the British. Wolfe marched round the
harbour on the 12th with 1300 infantry and a strong detachment of
artillery. The guns for the Royal Battery and other points inside the
harbour were hauled into place by teams of about a hundred men each.
Those for Lighthouse Point were sent round by sea, landed, with immense
difficulty, more than a mile distant on the rock-bound shore, hauled up
the cliff, and then dragged back over the roughest of ground to the
battery. It was, in fact, a repetition of what the American militiamen
had done in 1745. Wolfe worked incessantly, directing and encouraging
his toiling men. The bluejackets seconded his efforts by doing even
harder work. Their boats were often stove, and a catamaran was wrecked
with a brass twenty-four pounder on board. But nothing could stop the
perfect co-operation between the two halves of the single United
Service. 'The Admiral and General,' wrote Wolfe, 'have carried on the
public service with great harmony, industry, and union. Mr Boscawen has
given all, and even more than we could ask of him. He has furnished arms
and ammunition, pioneers, sappers, miners, gunners, carpenters, and
boats.'

While Wolfe was doing his eight days' work of preparation at the
Lighthouse Battery, between the 12th and the 20th, Amherst, whose
favourite precept was 'slow and sure,' was performing an even more
arduous task by building a road from Flat Point to where he intended to
make his trenches. This road meandered over the least bad line that
could be found in that country of alternate rock, bog, sand, scrub,
bush, and marshy ponds. The working party was always a thousand strong,
and shifts, of course, were constant. Boscawen landed marines to man the
works along the shore, and bluejackets for any handyman's job required.
This proved of great advantage to the army, which had so many more men
set free for other duties. The landing of stores went on from sunrise to
sunset, whenever the pounding surf calmed down enough. Landing the guns
was, of course, much harder still. It accounted for most of the hundred
boats that were dashed to pieces against that devouring shore.

       *       *       *       *       *

Thorough and persistent as this work was, however, it gave the garrison
of Louisbourg little outward sign of what was happening just beyond the
knolls and hillocks. Besides, just at this time, when there was a lull
before the storm that was soon to burst from Wolfe and Amherst, both
sides had more dramatic things to catch the general eye. First, there
was the worthy namesake of 'the saucy _Arethusa_' in the rival British
Navy, the _Arthuse_, whose daring and skilful captain, Vauquelin, had
moored her beside the Barachois, or sea-pond, so that he could outflank
Amherst's approach against the right land face of Louisbourg. Then, of
still more immediate interest was the nimble little _Echo_, which tried
to run the gauntlet of the British fleet on June 18, a day long
afterwards made famous on the field of Waterloo. Drucour had entrusted
his wife and several other ladies to the captain of the _Echo_, who was
to make a dash for Quebec with dispatches for the governor of Canada. A
muffling fog shut down and seemed to promise her safety from the
British, though it brought added danger from that wrecking coast. With
infinite precautions she slipped out on the ebb, between the French at
the Island Battery and Wolfe's strenuous workers at the Lighthouse
Point. But the breeze that bore her north also raised the fog enough to
let the _Juno_ and _Sutherland_ sight her and give chase. She crowded on
a press of sail till she was overhauled, when she fought her captors
till her case was hopeless.

Madame Drucour and the other ladies were then sent back to Louisbourg
with every possible consideration for their feelings. This act of
kindness was remembered later on, when a regular interlude of courtesies
followed Drucour's offer to send his own particularly skilful surgeon to
any wounded British officer who might need his services. Amherst sent in
several letters and messages from wounded Frenchmen, and a special
message from himself to Madame Drucour, complimenting her upon her
bravery, and begging her acceptance of some West Indian pineapples. Once
more the flag of truce came out, this time to return the compliment with
a basket of wine. As the gate swung to, the cannon roared again on
either side. Amherst's was no unmerited compliment; for Madame Drucour
used to mount the ramparts every day, no matter what the danger was, and
fire three cannon for the honour of her king. But the French had no
monopoly in woman's work. True, there were no officers' wives to play
the heroine on the British side. But there were others to play a humbler
part, and play it well. In those days each ship or regiment bore a
certain proportion of women on their books for laundering and other work
which is still done, at their own option, by women 'married on the
strength' of the Army. Most of the several hundred women in the
besieging fleet and army became so keen to see the batteries armed that
they volunteered to team the guns, which, in some cases, they actually
did, with excellent effect.

       *       *       *       *       *

By June 26 Louisbourg had no defences left beyond its own walls, except
the reduced French squadron huddled together in the south-west harbour.
The more exposed ships had come down on the 21st, after a day's
bombardment from Wolfe's terrific battery at Lighthouse Point: 'they in
return making an Infernall Fire from all their Broadsides; but,
wonderfull to think of, no harm done us.' Five days later every single
gun in the Island Battery was dumb. At the same time Amherst occupied
Green Hill, directly opposite the citadel and only half a mile away. Yet
Drucour, with dauntless resolution, resisted for another month. His
object was not to save his own doomed fortress but Quebec.

He needed all his resolution. The British were pressing him on every
side, determined to end the siege in time to transfer their force
elsewhere. Louisbourg itself was visibly weakening. The walls were
already crumbling under Amherst's converging fire, though the British
attack had not yet begun in earnest. Surely, thoroughly, and with an
irresistible zeal, the besiegers had built their road, dragged up their
guns, and begun to worm their way forward, under skilfully constructed
cover, towards the right land face of Louisbourg, next to the south-west
harbour, where the ground was less boggy than on the left. The French
ships fired on the British approaches; but, with one notable exception,
not effectively, because some of them masked others, while they were all
under British fire themselves, both from the Lighthouse and the Royal
Batteries, as well as from smaller batteries along the harbour.
Vauquelin, who shares with Iberville the honour of being the naval hero
of New France, was the one exception. He fought the _Arthuse_ so
splendidly that he hampered the British left attack long enough to give
Louisbourg a comparative respite for a few hasty repairs.

But nothing could now resist Boscawen if the British should choose to
run in past the demolished Island Battery and attack the French fleet,
first from a distance, with the help of the Lighthouse and Royal
Batteries, and then hand-to-hand. So the French admiral, des Gouttes,
agreed to sink four of his largest vessels in the fairway. This,
however, still left a gap; so two more were sunk. The passage was then
mistakenly reported to be safely closed. The crews, two thousand strong,
were landed and camped along the streets. This caused outspoken
annoyance to the army and to the inhabitants, who thought the crews had
not shown fight enough afloat, who consequently thought them of little
use ashore, who found them in the way, and who feared they had come in
without bringing a proper contribution of provisions to the common
stock.

The _Arthuse_ was presently withdrawn from her perilous berth next to
the British left approach, as she was the only frigate left which seemed
to have a chance of running the gauntlet of Boscawen's fleet. Her
shot-holes were carefully stopped; and on the night of July 14 she was
silently towed to the harbour mouth, whence she sailed for France with
dispatches from Drucour and des Gouttes. The fog held dense, but the
wind was light, and she could hardly forge ahead under every stitch of
canvas. All round her the lights of the British fleet and convoy rose
and fell with the heaving rollers, like little embers blurring through
the mist. Yet Vauquelin took his dark and silent way quite safely, in
and out between them, and reached France just after Louisbourg had
fallen.

Meanwhile Drucour had made several sorties against the British front,
while Boishbert had attacked their rear with a few hundred Indians,
Acadians, and Canadians. Boishbert's attack was simply brushed aside by
the rearguard of Amherst's overwhelming force. The American Rangers
ought to have defeated it themselves, without the aid of regulars. But
they were not the same sort of men as those who had besieged Louisbourg
thirteen years before. The best had volunteered then. The worst had been
enlisted now. Of course, there were a few good men with some turn for
soldiering. But most were of the wastrel and wharf-rat kind. Wolfe
expressed his opinion of them in very vigorous terms: 'About 500 Rangers
are come, which, to appearance, are little better than _la canaille_.
These Americans are in general the dirtiest, most contemptible, cowardly
dogs that you can conceive. There is no depending upon 'em in action.
They fall down dead in their own dirt, and desert by battalions,
officers and all.'

Drucour's sorties, made by good French regulars, were much more serious
than Boishbert's feeble, irregular attack. On the night of July 8,
while Montcalm's Ticonderogan heroes were resting on their hard-won
field a thousand miles inland, Drucour's best troops crept out unseen
and charged the British right. Lord Dundonald and several of his men
were killed, while the rest were driven back to the second approach,
where desperate work was done with the bayonet in the dark. But Wolfe
commanded that part of the line, and his supports were under arms in a
moment. The French attack had broken up into a score of little
rough-and-tumble fights--bayonets, butts, and swords all at it; friend
and foe mixed up in wild confusion. So the first properly formed troops
carried all before them. The knots of struggling combatants separated
into French and British. The French fell back on their defences. Their
friends inside fired on the British; and Wolfe, having regained his
ground, retired in the same good order on his lines.

A week later Wolfe suddenly dashed forward on the British left and
seized Gallows Hill, within a musket-shot of the French right bastion.
Here his men dug hard all night long, in spite of the fierce fire kept
up on them at point-blank range. In the morning reliefs marched in, and
the digging still continued. Sappers, miners, and infantry reliefs, they
never stopped till they had burrowed forward another hundred yards, and
the last great breaching battery had opened its annihilating fire. By
the 21st both sides saw that the end was near, so far as the walls were
concerned.

But it was not only the walls that were failing. For, that very
afternoon of the 21st, a British seaman gunner's cleverly planted bomb
found out a French ship's magazine, exploded it with shattering force,
and set fire to the ships on either side. All three blazed furiously.
The crews ran to quarters and did their best. But all to no purpose.
Meanwhile the British batteries had turned every available gun on the
conflagration, so as to prevent the French from saving anything. Between
the roaring flames, the bursting shells, and the whizzing cannon balls,
the three doomed vessels soon became an inferno too hot for men to stay
in. The crews swarmed over the side and escaped; not, however, without
losing a good many of their number. Then the British concentrated on the
only two remaining vessels, the _Prudent_ and the _Bienfaisant_. But the
French sailors, with admirable pluck and judgment, managed to haul them
round to a safer berth.

Next day a similar disaster befell the Louisbourg headquarters. A shell
went through the roof of the barracks at the King's Bastion, burst among
the men there, and set the whole place on fire. As the first tongues of
flame shot up the British concentrated on them. The French ran to the
threatened spot and worked hard, in spite of the storm of British shot
and shell. But nothing was saved, except Drucour's own quarters. During
the confusion the wind blew some burning dbris against the timbers
which protected the nearest casemates from exploding shells. An alarm
was raised among the women and children inside. A panic followed; and
the civilians of both sexes had their nerves so shaken that they thought
of nothing but surrender on the spot.

Hardly had this excitement been allayed when the main barracks
themselves caught fire. Fortunately they had been cleared when the other
fire had shown how imminent the danger was to every structure along the
walls. The barracks were in special danger of fire, for they had been
left with the same wooden roof which the New Englanders had put on
thirteen years before. Again the British guns converged their
devastating fire on the point of danger, and the whole place was burned
to the ground.

Most of the troops were now deprived of all shelter. They had no choice
but to share the streets with a still larger number of sailors than
those to whom they had formerly objected. Yet they had scarcely tried to
settle down and make the best of it before another batch of sailors came
crowding in from the last of the whole French fleet. At one o'clock in
the morning of July 25 a rousing British cheer from the harbour had
announced an attack on the _Prudent_ and the _Bienfaisant_ by six
hundred bluejackets, who had stolen in, with muffled oars, just on the
stroke of midnight. Presently the sound of fighting died away, and all
was still. At first the nearest gunners on the walls had lost their
heads and begun blazing away at random. But they were soon stopped; and
neither side dared fire, not knowing whom the shots might kill. Then, as
the escaping French came in to the walls, a bright glare told that the
_Prudent_ was on fire. She had cut her cable during the fight and was
lying, hopelessly stranded, right under the inner walls of Louisbourg.
The _Bienfaisant_, however, though now assailed by every gun the French
could bring to bear, was towed off to a snug berth beside the Lighthouse
Battery, the British bluejackets showing the same disregard of danger as
their gallant enemies had shown on the 21st, when towing her to safety
in the opposite direction.

At daylight Drucour made a thorough inspection of the walls, while the
only four serviceable cannon left fired slowly on, as if for the funeral
of Louisbourg. The British looked stronger than ever, and so close in
that their sharpshooters could pick off the French gunners from the foot
of the glacis. The best of the French diarists made this despairing
entry: 'Not a house in the whole place but has felt the force of their
cannonade. Between yesterday morning and seven o'clock to-night from a
thousand to twelve hundred shells have fallen inside the town, while at
least forty cannon have been firing incessantly as well. The surgeons
have to run at many a cry of '_Ware Shell_! for fear lest they should
share the patients' fate.' Amherst had offered to spare the island or
any one of the French ships if Drucour would put his hospital in either
place. But, for some unexplained reason, Drucour declined the offer;
though Amherst pointed out that no spot within so small a target as
Louisbourg itself could possibly be made immune by any gunners in the
world.

Reduced to the last extremity, the French council of war decided to ask
for terms. Boscawen and Amherst replied that the whole garrison must
surrender in an hour. Drucour sent back to beg for better terms. But the
second British answer was even sterner--complete surrender, yes or no,
in half an hour. Resentment still ran high against the French for the
massacre at Fort William Henry the year before. The actual massacre had
been the work of drunken Indians. The Canadians present had looked on.
The French, headed by Montcalm, had risked their lives to save the
prisoners. But such distinctions had been blotted out in the general
rage among the British on both sides of the Atlantic; and so Louisbourg
was now made the scapegoat.

Drucour at once wrote back to say that he stood by his first proposal,
which meant, of course, that he was ready to face the storming of his
works and no quarter for his garrison. His flag of truce started off
with this defiance. But Prvost the intendant, with other civilians, now
came forward, on behalf of the inhabitants, to beg for immediate
surrender on any terms, rather than that they should all be exposed to
the perils of assault. Drucour then gave way, and sent an officer
running after the defiant flag of truce. As soon as this second
messenger got outside the walls he called out, at the top of his voice,
'We accept! We accept!' He then caught up to the bearer of the flag of
truce, when both went straight on to British headquarters.

Boscawen and Amherst were quite prepared for either surrender or
assault. The storming parties had their scaling-ladders ready. The
Forlorn Hopes had been told off to lead the different columns. Every gun
was loaded, afloat and ashore. The fleet were waiting for the signal to
file in and turn a thousand cannon against the walls. Nothing was
lacking for complete success. On the other hand, their terms were also
ready waiting. The garrison was to be sent to England as prisoners of
war. The whole of Louisbourg, Cape Breton, and Isle St Jean (now Prince
Edward Island) were to be surrendered immediately, with all the public
property they contained. The West Gate was to be handed over to a
British guard at eight the next morning; and the French arms were to be
laid down for good at noon. With this document the British commanders
sent in the following note:

     SIR,--We have the honour to send Your Excellency the signed
     articles of Capitulation.

     Lieutenant Colonel d'Anthony has spoken on behalf of the people in
     the town. We have no intention of molesting them; but shall give
     them all the protection in our power.

     Your Excellency will kindly sign the duplicate of the terms and
     send it back to us.

     It only remains for us to assure Your Excellency that we shall
     seize every opportunity of convincing you that we are, with the
     most perfect consideration, Your Excellency's most Obedient
     Servants,

                                                       E. BOSCAWEN.
                                                       J. AMHERST.

No terms were offered either to the Indians or to the armed Canadians,
on account of Fort William Henry; and it is certain that all these would
have been put to the sword, to the very last man, had Drucour decided to
stand an assault. To the relief of every one concerned the Indians
paddled off quietly during the night, which luckily happened to be
unusually dark and calm. The Canadians either followed them or mingled
with the unarmed inhabitants. This awkward problem therefore solved
itself.

Few went to bed that last French night in Louisbourg. All responsible
officials were busy with duties, reports, and general superintendence.
The townsfolk and soldiery were restless and inclined to drown their
humiliation in the many little cabarets, which stood open all night. A
very different place, the parish church, was also kept open, and for a
very different purpose. Many hasty marriages were performed, partly from
a wholly groundless fear of British licence, and partly because those
who wished to remain in Cape Breton thought they would not be allowed to
do so unless they were married.

Precisely at eight the next morning Major Farquhar drew up his
grenadiers in front of the West Gate, which was immediately surrendered
to him. No one but the officers concerned witnessed this first ceremony.
But the whole population thronged every point of vantage round the
Esplanade to see the formal surrender at noon. All the British admirals
and generals were present on parade as Drucour stepped forward, saluted,
and handed his sword to Boscawen. His officers followed his example.
Then the troops laid down their arms, in the ranks as they stood, many
dashing down their muskets with a muttered curse.

The French--naval, military, and civilian--were soon embarked. The curse
of Louisbourg followed most of them, in one form or another. The
combatants were coldly received when they eventually returned to France,
in spite of their gallant defence, and in spite of their having saved
Quebec for that campaign. Several hundreds of the inhabitants were
shipwrecked and drowned. One transport was abandoned off the coast of
Prince Edward Island, with the loss of two hundred lives. Another sprang
a leak as she was nearing England; whereupon, to their eternal
dishonour, the crew of British merchant seamen took all the boats and
started to pull off alone. The three hundred French prisoners, men,
women, and children, crowded the ship's side and begged that, if they
were themselves to be abandoned, their priest should be saved. A boat
reluctantly put back for him. Then, leaving the ship to her fate, the
crew pulled for Penzance, where the people had just been celebrating the
glorious victory of Louisbourg.

The French loss had been enough without this. About one in five of all
the combatants had been hit. Twice as many were on the sick list.
Officers and men, officials and traders, fishermen and other
inhabitants, all lost something, in certain cases everything they had;
and it was to nothing but the sheer ruin of all French power beside the
American Atlantic that Madame Drucour waved her long white scarf in a
last farewell.

       *       *       *       *       *

France was stung to the quick. Her sea link gone, she feared that the
whole of Canada would soon be won by the same relentless British
sea-power, which was quite as irresistible as it was ubiquitous in the
mighty hands of Pitt. So deeply did her statesmen feel her imminent
danger on the sea, and resent this particular British triumph in the
world-wide 'Maritime War,' that they took the unusual course of sending
the following circular letter to all the Powers of Europe:

     We are advised that Louisbourg capitulated to the English on July
     26. We fully realize the consequences of such a grave event. But
     we shall redouble our efforts to repair the misfortune.

     All commercial nations ought now to open their eyes to their own
     interests and join us in preventing the absolute tyranny which
     England will soon exercise on every sea if a stop be not put to her
     boundless avarice and ambition.

     For a century past the Powers of Europe have been crying out
     against France for disturbing the balance of power on the
     Continent. But while England was artfully fomenting this trouble
     she was herself engaged in upsetting that balance of power at sea
     without which these different nations' independent power on land
     cannot subsist. All governments ought to give their immediate and
     most serious attention to this subject, as the English now threaten
     to usurp the whole world's seaborne commerce for themselves.

While the French were taken up with unavailing protests and regrets the
British were rejoicing with their whole heart. Their loss had been
small. Only a twentieth of their naval and military total had been
killed or wounded, or had died from sickness, during the seven weeks'
siege. Their gain had been great. The one real fortress in America, the
last sea link between Old France and New, the single sword held over
their transatlantic shipping, was now unchallengeably theirs.

The good news travelled fast. Within three weeks of the surrender the
dispatches had reached England. Defeats, disasters, and exasperating
fiascos had been common since the war began. But at last there was a
genuine victory, British through and through, won by the Army and Navy
together, and won over the greatest of all rivals, France. 'When we lost
Minorca,' said the _London Chronicle_, just a month after the surrender,
'a general panic fell upon the nation; but now that Louisbourg is taken
our streets echo with triumph and blaze with illuminations.' Loyal
addresses poured in from every quarter. The king stood on the palace
steps to receive the eleven captured colours; and then, attended by the
whole court, went in state to the royal thanksgiving service held in St
Paul's Cathedral.

The thanks of parliament were voted to Amherst and Boscawen. Boscawen
received them in person, being a member of the House of Commons. The
speaker read the address, which was couched in the usual verbiage worked
up by one of the select committees employed on such occasions. But
Boscawen replied, as men of action should, with fewer words and much
more force and point: 'Mr Speaker, Sir, I am happy to have been able to
do my duty. I have no words to express my sense of the distinguished
reward that has been conferred upon me by this House; nor can I thank
you, Sir, enough for the polite and elegant manner in which you have
been pleased to convey its resolution to me.'

The American colonists in general rejoiced exceedingly that Louisbourg
and all it meant had been exterminated. But, especially in New England,
their joy was considerably tempered by the reflection that the final
blow had been delivered without their aid, and that the British arms had
met with a terrible reverse at Ticonderoga, where the American militia
had outnumbered the old-country regulars by half as much again.
Nevertheless Boston built a 'stately bonfire,' which made a 'lofty and
prodigious blaze'; while Philadelphia, despite its parasitic Quakers,
had a most elaborate display of fireworks representing England,
Louisbourg, the siege, the capture, the triumph, and reflected glory
generally.

At the inland front, near Lake Champlain, where Abercromby now went by
the opprobrious nickname of 'Mrs Nabbycrumby,' 'The General put out
orders that the breastwork should be lined with troops, and to fire
three rounds for joy, and give thanks to God in a Religious Way.' But
the joy was more wholehearted among the little, half-forgotten garrisons
of Nova Scotia. At Annapolis no news arrived till well on in September,
when a Boston sloop came sailing up the bay. Captain Knox, that most
industrious of diarists, records the incident.

     Every soul was impatient, yet shy of asking. At length I called
     out, 'What news from Louisbourg?' To which the master simply
     replied, and with some gravity, 'Nothing strange.' This threw us
     all into great consternation, and some of us even turned away. But
     one of our soldiers called out with some warmth, 'Damn you,
     Pumpkin, isn't Louisbourg taken yet?' The poor New England man then
     answered: 'Taken, yes, above a month ago; and I have been there
     since; but if you haven't heard of it before, I have a good parcel
     of letters for you now.' Instantly all hats flew off, and we made
     the neighbouring woods resound with our cheers for almost half an
     hour.

Halifax naturally heard the news sooner than other places; and being
then, as now, a naval port and a garrison town, it gave full vent to its
feelings. Bells pealed. Bonfires blazed. Salutes thundered from the fort
and harbour. But all this was a mere preliminary canter. The real race
came off when the victorious fleet and army returned in triumph. Land
and water were then indeed alive with exultant crowds. The streets were
like a fair, and a noisy one at that. Soldiers, sailors, and civilians
drank standing toasts the whole night through. The commissioner of
excise recorded, not without a touch of proper pride, that, quite apart
from all illicit wines and spirits, no less than sixty thousand gallons
of good Jamaica rum were drunk in honour of the fall of Louisbourg. In
higher circles, where wine was commoner than spirits, the toasts were
honoured just as often. Governor Lawrence, fresh from Louisbourg
himself, opened the new Government House with a grand ball; and Wolfe,
whom all now thought the coming man, drank healths, sang songs, and
danced with pretty partners to his heart's content.




CHAPTER V

ANNIHILATION

1760


The new garrison of Louisbourg hated it as thoroughly as any of their
predecessors, French or British. They repaired the breaches, in a
temporary way, and ran up shelters for the winter. Interest revived with
the spring; for Wolfe was coming back again, this time to command an
army of his own and take Quebec.

The great absorbing question was, Who's for the front and who for the
base? Both fleet and army made their rendezvous at Louisbourg; a larger
fleet and a smaller army than those of the year before. Two new toasts
were going the rounds of the Service: 'Here's to the eye of a Hawke and
the heart of a Wolfe!' and 'Here's to British colours on every French
fort, port, and garrison in America!' Of course they were standing
toasts. The men who drank them already felt the presage of Pitt's great
Empire Year of 1759.

The last two weeks in May and the first in June were full of glamour in
crowded, stirring Louisbourg. There was Wolfe's picked army of nine
thousand men, with Saunders's mighty fleet of fifty men-of-war, mounting
two thousand guns, comprising a quarter of the whole Royal Navy, and
convoying more than two hundred transports and provision ships; all
coming and going, landing, embarking, drilling, dividing, massing; every
one expectant of glorious results and eager to begin. Who wouldn't be
for the front at the climax of a war like this?

Then came the final orders issued in Louisbourg. '1st June, 1759. The
Troops land no more. The flat-bottomed boats to be hoisted in, that the
ships may be ready to sail at the first signal.' '2nd June, 1759. The
Admiral purposes sailing the first fair wind.' On the 4th a hundred and
forty-one sail weighed anchor together. All that day and the next they
were assembling outside and making for the island of Scatari, just
beyond the point of Cape Breton, which is only ten miles north of
Louisbourg. By noon on the 6th the last speck of white had melted away
from the Louisbourg horizon and the men for the front were definitely
parted from those left behind at the base.

       *       *       *       *       *

Great things were dared and done at the front that year, in Europe,
Asia, and America. But nothing was done at dull little Louisbourg,
except the wearisome routine of a disgustingly safe base. Rocks, bogs,
fogs, sand, and scrubby bush ashore. Tantalizing news from the stirring
outside world afloat. So the long, blank, summer days wore through.

The second winter proved a little more comfortable than the first had
been. But there was less, far less, for the garrison to expect in the
spring. In February 1760 the death-warrant of Louisbourg was signed in
London by Pitt and King George II. In the following summer it was
executed by Captain John Byron, R.N., the poet's grandfather. Sailors,
sappers, and miners worked for months together, laying the pride of
Louisbourg level with the dust. That they carried out their orders with
grim determination any one can see to-day by visiting the grave in which
they buried so many French ambitions.

       *       *       *       *       *

All the rest of Ile Royale lost its French life in the same supreme
catastrophe--the little forts and trading-posts, the fishing-villages
and hamlets; even the farms along the Mira, which once were thought so
like the promise of a second French Acadia.

Nothing remains of that dead past, anywhere inland, except a few
gnarled, weather-beaten stumps of carefully transplanted plum and apple
trees, with, here and there, a straggling little patch of pale, forlorn
narcissus, now soothing the alien air in vain, round shapeless ruins, as
absolute and lone as those of Louisbourg itself.




BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE


There is no complete naval and military history of Louisbourg, in either
French or English. The first siege is a prominent feature in all
histories of Canada, New England, and the United States, though it is
not much noticed in works written in the mother country. The second
siege is noticed everywhere. The beginning and end of the story is
generally ignored, and the naval side is always inadequately treated.

Parkman gives a good account of the first siege in _A Half-Century of
Conflict_, and a less good account of the second in _Montcalm and
Wolfe_. Kingsford's accounts are in volumes iii and iv of the _History
of Canada_. Sir John Bourinot, a native of the island, wrote a most
painstaking work on _Cape Breton and its Memorials of the French Rgime_
which was first published in the _Transactions of the Royal Society of
Canada_ for 1891. Garneau and other French-Canadian historians naturally
emphasize a different set of facts and explanations. An astonishingly
outspoken account of the first siege is given in the anonymous _Lettre
d'un Habitant de Louisbourg_, which has been edited, with a
translation, by Professor Wrong. The gist of many accounts is to be
found, unpretentiously put together, in _The Last Siege of Louisbourg_,
by C. O. Macdonald. New England produced many contemporary and
subsequent accounts of the first siege, and all books concerned with the
Conquest give accounts of the second.

Those who wish to go straight to original sources will find useful
bibliographies in the notes to Parkman's and Bourinot's books, as well
as in Justin Winsor's _Narrative and Critical History of America_. But
none of these includes some important items to be found either in or
through the Dominion Archives at Ottawa, the Public Records Office in
London, and the Archives de la Marine in Paris.




INDEX

Abercromby, General, defeated by Montcalm, 101;
  on the fall of Louisbourg, 131.

Acadians, prefer to stay in Acadia, 3-4, 26, 81;
  their relations with Louisbourg, 8, 116;
  their expulsion, 95.

Aix-la-Chapelle, treaty of, 89.

American Rangers, the, 116.

Amherst, General, in command at siege of Louisbourg, 102-4, 108, 109-10,
    113-4, 121;
  compliments Madame Drucour, 112;
  the surrender, 122-6, 129.

Annapolis, siege of, 26, 36;
  and the British victory at Louisbourg, 131.

Anson, Admiral, 89;
  first lord of the Admiralty, 102.

Anville, Duc d', his disastrous expedition, 84-7.


Bigot, intendant of Louisbourg, 13;
  promoted to Quebec, 92.

Boishbert, attacks British rear at Louisbourg, 116, 117.

Boscawen, Admiral, 95;
  in command of fleet at siege of Louisbourg, 102-4, 109, 110;
  the surrender, 122-6;
  his reply to parliament, 129-30.

Boston, its relations with Louisbourg, 41, 53, 71, 72, 83, 92, 130;
  prepares for French invasion, 82-3;
  receives New England's war indemnity, 91.

Braddock, General, his defeat, 95.

Bradstreet, Colonel John, at first siege of Louisbourg, 40.

Byng, Admiral, his failure, 96.

Byron, Captain John, razes Louisbourg, 136.


Canso, its surrender, 25;
  the New England forces at, 32, 33.

Cape Breton, under France, 3, 4, 8, 9;
  resources of, 9-10;
  surrendered to Britain, 123, 136-7.

Cape Finisterre, naval battle off, 89.

Chaffault, Admiral du, at Louisbourg, 100.

Chambon, Governor du, defends Louisbourg against New England's attack,
         34-5, 47, 51, 54, 55, 60, 61;
  surrenders, 63-6.

Conflans, Admiral, and the recapture of Louisbourg, 85-6.

Connecticut, and New England expeditions against the French, 28, 80.

Crown Point, raid on, 82.


Drucour, governor of Louisbourg, his forces, 101;
  opposes the British landing,
  105-7; his interchange of courtesies with Amherst, 111-2;
  his object to save Quebec, 113, 116, 117, 121;
  surrenders, 122-6.

Drucour, Madame, at siege of Louisbourg, 111-2, 127.

Dundonald, Lord, killed in sortie at Louisbourg, 117.


Estournel, Admiral d', his tragic death, 87.


Farquhar, Major, receives the surrender of the West Gate, 125.

Flat Point, on Gabarus Bay, 38, 42, 105, 107, 108, 110.

Fort William Henry, massacre at, 122, 124.

France, and Louisbourg, 5-6, 9, 10;
  her system of colonial government, 11-13;
  her disastrous expeditions to retake Louisbourg, 82, 84-9;
  receives Louisbourg under Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 89, 93-4, 100;
  stung by the second fall of Louisbourg, 126, 127;
  her circular to the Powers of Europe on Britain's sea-power, 127-8.

Freshwater Cove, on Gabarus Bay, 38.


Gabarus Bay, 20;
  landing of New England's army at, 36, 38-9, 43;
  and of Amherst's army, 104-7, 110.

Gallows Hill, battery erected on, 117-8.

Gibson, James, 9;
  assists Shirley in his plans against Louisbourg, 27, 28.

Gorham, of the Rangers, his report on Louisbourg, 98.

Gorham's Post, at Louisbourg, 60-1.

Gouttes, Admiral des, at defence of Louisbourg, 114-5.

Great Awakening, the, in New England, 30, 53.

Great Britain, and the first fall of Louisbourg, 71-2, 90-1;
  gives up Louisbourg to France, 89;
  her navy compared with that of France, 84-5, 102, 127-8;
  rejoicing in at second fall of Louisbourg, 128-30.

Green Hill, battery at, 45, 64, 113.

Gridley, Colonel, at first siege of Louisbourg, 61.


Halifax, 85, 86;
  founded, 90-1, 92, 103;
  rejoicing in at the British victory at Louisbourg, 132-3.

Hardy, Sir Charles, 97;
  his blockade of Louisbourg, 104.

Hawke, Admiral, 100, 134.

Hay, Sir Charles, his criticism of Loudoun's preparations, 97-8.

Holbourne, Admiral, his disastrous expedition, 97-9.


Ile Royale, 3, 10.
  See Cape Breton.

Ile St Jean, 13.
  See Prince Edward Island.

Indians, in Maritime Provinces, 16;
  with Marin, 36;
  with Drucour, 101, 116, 124, 125.

Island Battery of Louisbourg, 19, 20, 56, 93, 101, 111;
  the night attack on, 57-60;
  silenced, 61-2, 68, 113, 114.


Kennington Cove, Wolfe's landing-place on Gabarus Bay, 105-6.

Knox, Captain, on the second fall of Louisbourg, 131-2.


La Jonquire, Admiral, his defeat off Cape Finisterre, 87-9.

La Motte, Admiral, at Louisbourg, 98-9.

Lawrence, Governor, at Halifax, 132-3.

Lighthouse Point, 21, 37, 58;
  a battery erected at, 60-2, 93, 101;
  destroyed and abandoned by Drucour, 107-8;
  erected by the British, 108-9, 111, 113, 114.

Loudoun, Earl of, his preparations against Louisbourg, 97-8.

Louisbourg, 1-2, 7, 17, 74, 90, 134, 136;
  the building of the fortress, 5, 6, 22-3;
  character of the French population, 3, 4, 5, 8;
  its contraband trade with New England, 7-8, 92;
  its system of government, 11-14, 21, 35;
  army life in, 14-6, 22, 35, 93;
  the 'Dunkirk' of New France, 17-8;
  works and fortifications of, 19-23, 93, 108;
  its position in relation to New England, 24-5;
  its preparations against attack, 34-6, 38;
  FIRST SIEGE
    Royal Battery captured, 39-42;
    the bombardment, 45-50, 62;
    the blockade, 36, 54-5;
    the Island Battery night attack, 57-60;
    Island Battery silenced, 61-2;
    surrender of Louisbourg to Pepperrell and Warren, 63-6;
    garrisoned by New England men, 67-8, 74-80;
    given back to France, 89, 90;
    La Motte at, 98;
    its preparations to withstand siege, 101-2;
  SECOND SIEGE
    isolated by Pitt, 100, 101;
    the landing of the British, 104-7;
    the siege, 108-21;
    surrendered to Amherst and Boscawen, 122-6;
    the fate of the prisoners, 126-7;
    serves as Wolfe's base in siege of Quebec, 134-6;
    utterly destroyed, 136-7.


Marin, guerilla leader, besieges Annapolis, 36, 51.

Maritime War, the, 95, 100, 127.

Maryland, and war against the French, 80.

Mascarene, Paul, defends Annapolis, 26.

Massachusetts, and Shirley's plan against Louisbourg, 25, 26-8;
  mutiny of the men of, 76, 77;
  and the extirpation of the French from Canada, 80, 82;
  the royal message to, 91.
  See New England States.

Mauger, Joseph, a Halifax trader, amasses great wealth by smuggling, 92.

Meserv, Colonel, his gun-sleigh at Louisbourg, 44.

Micmacs, the, 16, 92.

Mira river, the French settlement at, 8-9, 137.

Montcalm, Marquis de, French commander in Canada, 15, 95, 96, 101, 122.

Moody, Parson, with the New England forces at siege of Louisbourg,
    31, 33, 67, 71.


Newcastle, Duke of, and the New England army, 78, 81.

New England States, their colonists compared with the French, 4, 16;
  their contraband trade with Louisbourg, 7, 92;
  their erroneous ideas concerning the strength of French resources, 11;
  their preparations against Louisbourg, 24-5, 26, 28-9, 30, 41;
  their forces, 31-2, 33, 76;
  the landing on Gabarus Bay, 38-9, 43;
  capture of Royal Battery, 39-42;
  hardships and difficulties, 43-5;
  the bombardment, 45-50, 62;
  some irregularities, 51-2;
  and gaieties, 52-3;
  the night attack on Island Battery, 57-60;
  the surrender of Louisbourg to Pepperrell and Warren, 63-6;
  disappointment of the Provincials, 66-8, 70, 75;
  their discontent and miseries in Louisbourg, 76-80;
  the army disbanded, 81;
  their fear of French invasion, 82-3, 88;
  their resentment in connection with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 89,
    90-1;
  effect of the second fall of Louisbourg in, 130-1.

New France in 1720, 1-4;
  system of government in, 11-3;
  and the Indians, 16-7;
  and Louisbourg, 103.

New Hampshire, and war against the French, 28, 80.

New Jersey, and Shirley's plans against the French, 80.

New York, and the New England attack on Louisbourg, 29;
  and French extirpation, 80, 82.


Paris, peace of, 1.

Pennsylvania, and war against the French, 80-1.

Pepperrell, Sir William, commander of New England army at siege of
    Louisbourg, 29, 30, 34, 38, 40, 45, 48, 51, 55, 56-7, 58, 63-6, 68;
  celebrates his victory, 70-1;
  made a baronet, 72, 78;
  his troubles with his army in Louisbourg, 74-7, 80.

Pitt, William, minister of War, 96, 102;
  his world-wide campaign, 99-100, 127;
  his Empire Year, 135, 136.

Prvost, intendant of Louisbourg, 93, 122-3.

Prince, Rev. Thomas, and the New England attack on Louisbourg, 31;
  his litany on the threatened French invasion, 83-4.

Prince Edward Island, 13;
  surrendered to Britain, 123.


Quakers of Pennsylvania, their principles, 81, 130.

Quebec, its relations with Louisbourg, 11-2, 22, 36, 103, 111, 113,
    126, 134;
  on the defensive, 101.

Quesnel, Governor du, much disliked in Louisbourg, 25, 34.


Rhode Island, and war against the French, 28-9, 80.

Rous, Captain, at siege of Louisbourg, 73.

Royal Battery of Louisbourg, 19, 37, 93, 101;
  its capture in New England siege, 39-42, 48, 54, 58, 62;
  destroyed by Drucour, 107-8;
  erected again by the British, 108-9, 114.


Saunders, Admiral, his fleet at Louisbourg, 135.

Scott, Major, with Wolfe in landing on Gabarus Bay, 106.

Seven Years' War, beginning of, 94-5.

Shirley, Governor, of Massachusetts, plans an attack on Louisbourg, 26,
    27, 28, 29, 32; his plan, 36-7;
  receives a colonelcy, 72, 78;
  settles grievances of the New England army, 77-8;
  his scheme against the French, 80.


Titcomb's Battery, the mounting of guns at, 48, 56.


Ulloa, Don Antonio de, taken prisoner at Louisbourg, 69.

Utrecht, treaty of, 1, 2, 4, 18.


Vaughan, William, and the New England attack on Louisbourg, 26, 28, 57;
  captures the Royal Battery, 39-40.

Vauquelin, captain of the 'Arthuse' in the defence of Louisbourg,
    111, 114;
  runs the gauntlet of the British fleet and reaches France, 115-6.

Virginia, and war against the French, 80.

Vivier, du, captures Canso, 25;
  besieges Annapolis, 26, 36.


Warren, Admiral, aids New England in her attack on Louisbourg, 32;
  his fleet, 32-3, 51, 62, 63;
  begins the blockade, 34, 36, 48, 54-7, 63-5, 72;
  the success of his stratagem, 68-9;
  his popularity, 70;
  with Anson defeats the French off Cape Finisterre, 89.

Whitefield, George, famous preacher, 30;
  and the New England attack on Louisbourg, 30, 31.

White Point, on Gabarus Bay, 105, 107.

Wolfe, General, with Amherst at siege of Louisbourg, 103, 116;
  at the landing on Gabarus Bay, 105-6;
  erects Royal and Lighthouse Batteries, 108-9;
  defeats French sortie and seizes Gallows Hill, 117;
  at Halifax, 133;
  at Louisbourg preparing for the siege of Quebec, 134-5.

       *       *       *       *       *

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press


Transcribers's notes:

Printer's errors have been corrected and all other inconsistencies are
as in the original. The author's spelling has been maintained.

Some illustrations have been moved from their original locations to
paragraph breaks and the page numbers have been changed where
necessary.

The illustration listing has been changed from 'Facing Page' to 'Page'.




[End of _The Great Fortress: A Chronicle of Louisbourg
1720-1760_ by William Wood]
