The Great Fortress A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760

n would not rest till she had seen Dunkirk demolished. N

ish 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 i

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 strength

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 t

litiaman, 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. Provi

aised over 3,000 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

s 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 commo

eficiencies. 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

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 Louis

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 marri

50 men at full strength. The thirteen Provincial armed vessels carried more than 1,000 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 4,270 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 les

ndous 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 t

ing to the Old Style calendar, St George's Day, April 23. After a conference with Pepperrell he hurried off to begin the blockade of Loui

ouisbourg 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 bette

e 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 1,800 ought to have been available. But four or five h

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

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 prof

rom 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 lo

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 safet

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 I

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 thi

emed 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

ho 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 mis

within two miles of Louisbourg. Equipment of all kinds was very scarce. Tents were so few and bad that old sails stretched over ridge-

y, 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-cabl

teen 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, t

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 a

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 besieg

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 wit

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 '

utted 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

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

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 s

ery 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 semicircle 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 witho

ements 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 re

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 deart

in the camp because 'It will please your whole army, as it shows them the way to gain by their gallantry the hearts and a

er 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 a

t; 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 s

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

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 1,500 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 4,000 had been effective. But as he then ha

d. 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

-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 ch

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 g

eral 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 ei

tupendous 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'

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 water-front of Louisbourg. Breaches were yawning elsewhere. British fascines were visible in large quanti

d, 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 4,000 sailors. Half these men could be landed to attack th

inst 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

ceptance, 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

aining 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'

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, ye 16th June [Old Style] they came to Termes for us to enter ye Sitty to morrow, an

' 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 cr

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 Delivrance. Among her passengers was the distinguished man of science, Don Antonio de Ulloa, on his way to Paris, with all the result

nd 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,'

s 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

long before the summer sun was up the streets were filled with shouts of triumph, while the church bells ran

rescient 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 Hil

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 En