Louisburgh--The Great French Fortress--Incidents of the Old French
War--Relics of the Siege--Description of the Town--The two Expeditions--A
Yankee _ruse de guerre_--The Rev. Samuel Moody's Grace--Wolfe's
Landing--The Fisherman's Hutch--The Lost Coaster--The Fisheries--Picton
tries his hand at a fish-pugh.
Nearly a century has elapsed since the fall of Louisburgh. The great
American fortress of Louis XV. surrendered to Amherst, Wolfe, and Boscawen
in 1758. A broken sea-wall of cut stone; a vast amphitheatre, inclosed
within a succession of green mounds; a glacis; and some miles of
surrounding ditch, yet remain--the relics of a structure for which the
treasury of France paid Thirty Millions of Livres!
We enter where had been the great gate, and walk up what had been the
great avenue. The vision follows undulating billows of green turf that
indicate the buried walls of a once powerful military town. Fifteen
thousand people were gathered in and about these walls; six thousand
troops were locked within this fortress, when the key turned in the
stupendous gate.
A hundred years since, the very air of the spot where we now stand,
vibrated with the chime of the church-bells and the roll of the stately
organ, or wafted to devout multitudes the savor of holy incense. Here were
congregated the soldiers, merchants, artisans of old France; on these high
walls paced the solemn sentry; in these streets the nun stole past in her
modest hood; or the romantic damsel pressed her cheek to the latticed
window, as the young officer rode by and, martial music filled the avenues
with its inspiring strains; in yonder bay floated the great war-ships of
Louis; and around the shores of this harbor could be counted battery after
battery, with scores of guns bristling from the embrasures.
The building of this stronghold was a labor of twenty-five years. The
stone walls rose to the height of thirty-six feet. In those broken arches,
studded with stalactites, those casemates, or vaults of the citadel, you
still see some evidence of its former strength. You will know the citadel
by them, and by the greater height of the mounds which mark the walls that
once encompassed it. Within these stood the smaller military chapel. Think
of looking down from this point upon those broad avenues, busy with life,
a hundred years ago!
Neither roof nor spire remain now; nor square nor street; nor convent,
church, or barrack. The green turf covers all: even the foundations of the
houses are buried. It is a city without an inhabitant. Dismantled cannon,
with the rust clinging in great flakes; scattered implements of war;
broken weapons, bayonets, gun-locks, shot, shell or grenade, unclaimed,
untouched, corroded and corroding, in silence and desolation, with no
signs of life visible within these once warlike parapets except the
peaceful sheep, grazing upon the very brow of the citadel, are the only
relics of once powerful Louisburgh.
Let us recall the outlines of its history. In the early part of the last
century, just after the death of Louis XIV., these foundations were laid,
and the town named in honor of the ruling monarch. Nova Scotia proper had
been ceded, by recent treaty, to the filibusters of Old and New-England,
but the ancient Island of Cape Breton still owned allegiance to the lilies
of France. Among the beautiful and commodious harbors that indent the
southern coast of the island, this one was selected as being most easy of
access. Although naturally well adapted for defence, yet its fortification
cost the government immense sums of money, insomuch as all the materials
for building had to be brought from a distance. Belknap thus describes it:
"It was environed, two miles and a half in circumference, with a rampart
of stone from thirty to thirty-six feet high, and a ditch eighty feet
wide, with the exception of a space of two hundred yards near the sea,
which was inclosed by a dyke and a line of pickets. The water in this
place was shallow, and numerous reefs rendered it inaccessible to
shipping, while it received an additional protection from the side-fire of
the bastions. There were six-bastions and eight batteries, containing
embrasures for one hundred and forty-eight cannon, of which forty-five
only were mounted, and eight mortars. On an island at the entrance of the
harbor was planted a battery of thirty cannon, carrying twenty-eight pound
shot; and at the bottom of the harbor was a grand, or royal battery, of
twenty-eight cannon, forty-two pounders, and two eighteen-pounders. On a
high cliff, opposite to the island-battery, stood a light house, and
within this point, at the north-east part of the harbor, was a careening
wharf, secure from all winds, and a magazine of naval stores. The town was
regularly laid out in squares; the streets were broad and commodious, and
the houses, which were built partly of wood upon stone foundations, and
partly of more durable materials, corresponded with the general appearance
of the place. In the centre of one of the chief bastions was a stone
building, with a moat on the side near the town, which was called the
citadel, though it had neither artillery nor a structure suitable to
receive any. Within this building were the apartments of the governor, the
barracks for the soldiers, and the arsenal; and, under the platform of the
redoubt, a magazine well furnished with military stores. The parish
church, also, stood within the citadel, and without was another, belonging
to the hospital of St. Jean de Dieu, which was an elegant and spacious
structure. The entrance to the town was over a drawbridge, near which was
a circular battery, mounting sixteen guns of fourteen-pound shot."
This cannon-studded harbor was the naval depot of France in America, the
nucleus of its military power, the protector of its fisheries, the key of
the gulf of St. Lawrence, the Sebastopol of the New World. For a quarter
of a century it had been gathering strength by slow degrees: Acadia, poor
inoffensive Acadia, from time to time, had been the prey of its rapacious
neighbors; but Louisburgh had grown amid its protecting batteries, until
Massachusetts felt that it was time for the armies of Gad to go forth and
purge the threshing-floor with such ecclesiastical iron fans as they were
wont to waft peace and good will with, wherever there was a fine opening
for profit and edification.
The first expedition against Louisburgh was only justifiable upon the
ground that the wants of New England for additional territory were
pressing, and immediate action, under the circumstances, indispensable.
Levies of colonial troops were made, both in and out of the territories of
the saints. The forces, however, actually employed, came from
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire; the first supplying three
thousand two hundred, the second five hundred, the third three hundred
men. The cooeperation of Commodore Warren, of the English West-Indian
fleet, was solicited; but the Commodore declined, on the ground "that the
expedition was wholly a provincial affair, undertaken without the assent,
and probably without the knowledge, of the ministry." But Governor Shirley
was not a man to stop at trifles. He had a heart of lignum vitae, a rigid
anti-papistical conscience, beetle brows, and an eye to the cod-fisheries.
Higher authority than international law was pressed into the service.
George Whitefield, then an itinerant preacher in New-England, furnished
the necessary warrant for the expedition, by giving a motto for its
banner: "_Nil desperandum Christo duce_"--Nothing is to be despaired of
with CHRIST for leader. The command was, however, given to William
Pepperel, a fish and shingle merchant of Maine. One of the chaplains of
the filibusters carried a hatchet specially sharpened, to hew down the
wooden images in the churches of Louisburgh. Everything that was needed to
encourage and cheer the saints, was provided by Governor Shirley,
especially a goodly store of New England rum, and the Rev. Samuel Moody,
the lengthiest preacher in the colonies. Louisburgh, at that time feebly
garrisoned, held out bravely in spite of the formidable array concentrated
against it. In vain the Rev. Samuel Moody preached to its high stone
walls; in vain the iconoclast chaplain brandished his ecclesiastical
hatchet; in vain Whitefield's banner flaunted to the wind. The fortress
held out against shot and shell, saint, flag and sermon. New England
ingenuity finally circumvented Louisburgh. Humiliating as the confession
is, it must be admitted that our pious forefathers did actually abandon
"CHRISTO duce," and used instead a little worldly artifice.
Commodore Warren, who had declined taking a part in the siege of
Louisburgh, on account of the regulations of the service, had received,
after the departure of the expedition, instructions to keep a look-out for
the interests of his majesty in North America, which of course could be
readily interpreted, by an experienced officer in his majesty's service,
to mean precisely what was meant to be meant. As a consequence, Commodore
Warren was speedily on the look-out, off the coast of Cape Breton, and in
the course of events fell in with, and captured, the "Vigilant,"
seventy-four, commanded by Captain Stronghouse, or, as his title runs,
"the Marquis de la Maison Forte." The "Vigilant" was a store-ship, filled
with munitions of war for the French town. Here was a glorious
opportunity. If the saints could only intimate to Duchambon, the Governor
of Louisburgh, that his supplies had been cut off, Duchambon might think
of capitulation. But unfortunately the French were prejudiced against the
saints, and would not believe them under oath. But when probity fails, a
little ingenuity and artifice will do quite as well. The chief of the
expedition was equal to the emergency. He took the Marquis of Stronghouse
to the different ships on the station, where the French prisoners were
confined, and showed him that they were treated with great civility; then
he represented to the Marquis that the New England prisoners were cruelly
dealt with in the fortress of Louisburgh; and requested him to write a
letter, in the name of humanity, to Duchambon, Governor, in behalf of
those suffering saints; "expressing his approbation of the conduct of the
English, and entreating similar usuage for those whom the fortune of war
had thrown in his hands." The Marquis wrote the letter; thus it begins:
"On board the 'Vigilant,' _where I am a prisoner_, before Louisburgh, June
thirteen, 1745." The rest of the letter is unimportant. The confession of
Captain Stronghouse, that he was a prisoner, was the point; and the
consequences thereof, which had been foreseen by the filibustering
besiegers, speedily followed. In three days Louisburgh capitulated.
Then the Rev. Samuel Moody greatly distinguished himself. He was a painful
preacher; the most untiring, persevering, long-winded, clamorous,
pertinacious vessel at craving a blessing, in the provinces. There was a
great feast in honor of the occasion. But more formidable than the siege
itself, was the anticipated "grace" of Brother Moody. New England held its
breath when he began, and thus the Reverend Samuel: "Good Lord, we have so
many things to thank Thee for, that time will be infinitely too short to
do it; we must therefore leave it for the work of eternity."
Upon this there was great rejoicing, yea, more than there had been upon
the capture of the French stronghold. Who shall say whether Brother
Moody's brevity may not stretch farther across the intervals of time than
the longest preaching ever preached by mortal preacher?
In three years after its capture, Louisburgh was restored to the French by
the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Ten years after its restoration, a heavier
armament, a greater fleet, a more numerous army, besieged its almost
impregnable walls. Under Amherst, Boscawen, and Wolfe, no less than
twenty-three ships of war, eighteen frigates, sixteen thousand land
forces, with a proportionable train of cannon and mortars, were arrayed
against this great fortress in the year 1758. Here, too, many of our own
ancestral warriors were gathered in that memorable conflict; here Gridley,
who afterwards planned the redoubt at Bunker Hill, won his first laurels
as an engineer; here Pomeroy distinguished himself, and others whose names
are not recorded, but whose deeds survive in the history of a republic.
The very drum that beat to arms before Louisburgh was braced again when
the greater drama of the Revolution opened at Concord and Lexington.
The siege continued for nearly two months. From June 8th until July 26th,
the storm of iron and fire--of rocket, shot, and shell--swept from yonder
batteries, upon the castellated city. Then when the King's, the Queen's,
the Dauphin's bastions were lying in ruins, the commander, Le Chevalier
de Drucour, capitulated, and the lilies of the Bourbon waved over
Louisburgh no more.
And here we stand nearly a century after, looking out from these war-works
upon the desolate harbor. At the entrance, the wrecks of three French
frigates, sunk to prevent the ingress of the British fleet, yet remain;
sometimes visited by our still enterprising countrymen, who come down in
coasters with diving-bell and windlass, to raise again from the deep,
imbedded in sea-shells, the great guns that have slept in the ooze so
long. Between those two points lay the ships of the line, and frigates of
Louis; opposite, where the parapets of stone are yet visible, was the
grand battery of forty guns: at Lighthouse Point yonder, two thousand
grenadiers, under General Wolfe, drove back the French artillerymen, and
tamed their cannon upon these mighty walls. Here the great seventy-four
blew up; there the English boats were sunk by the guns of the fortress;
day and night for many weeks this ground has shuddered with the thunders
of the cannonade.
And what of all this? we may ask. What of the ships that were sunk, and
those that floated away with the booty? What of the soldiers that fell by
hundreds here, and those that lived? What of the prisoners that mourned,
and the captors that triumphed? What of the flash of artillery, and the
shattered wall that answered it? Has any benefit resulted to mankind from
this brilliant achievement? Can any man, of any nation, stand here and
say: "This work was wrought to my profit?" Can any man draw such a breath
here amid these buried walls, as he can upon the humblest sod that ever
was wet with the blood of patriotism? I trow not.
A second time in possession of this stronghold, England had not the means
to maintain her conquest; the fortification was too large for any but a
powerful garrison. A hundred war-ships had congregated in that harbor:
frigates, seventy-fours, transports, sloops, under the _Fleur-de-lis_.
Although Louisburgh was the pivot-point of the French possessions, yet it
was but an outside harbor for the colonies. So the order went forth to
destroy the town that had been reared with so much cost, and captured with
so much sacrifice. And it took two solid years of gunpowder to blow up
these immense walls, upon which we now sadly stand, O gentle reader! Turf,
turf, turf covers all! The gloomiest spectacle the sight of man can dwell
upon is the desolate, but once populous, abode of humanity. Egypt itself
is cheerful compared with Louisburgh!
"It rains," said Picton.
It had rained all the morning; but what did that matter when a hundred
years since was in one's mind? Picton, in his mackintosh, was an
impervious representative of the nineteenth century; but I was as fully
saturated with water as if I were living in the place under the old French
_regime_.
"Let us go down," said Picton, "and see the jolly old fishermen outside
the walls. What is the use of staying here in the rain after you have seen
all that can be seen? Come along. Just think how serene it will be if we
can get some milk and potatoes down there."
There are about a dozen fishermen's huts on the beach outside the walls of
the old town of Louisburgh. When you enter one it reminds you of the
descriptive play-bill of the melo-drama--"Scene II.: Interior of a
Fisherman's Cottage on the Sea-shore: Ocean in the Distance." The walls
are built of heavy timbers, laid one upon another, and caulked with moss
or oakum. Overhead are square beams, with pegs for nets, poles, guns,
boots, the heterogeneous and picturesque tackle with which such ceilings
are usually ornamented. But oh! how clean everything is! The knots are
fairly scrubbed out of the floor-planks, the hearth-bricks red as
cherries, the dresser-shelves worn thin with soap and sand, and white as
the sand with which they have been scoured. I never saw drawing-room that
could compare with the purity of that interior. It was cleanliness itself;
but I saw many such before I left Louisburgh, in both the old town and the
new.
We sat down in the "hutch," as they call it, before a cheery wood-fire,
and soon forgot all about the outside rain. But if we had shut out the
rain, we had not shut out the neighboring Atlantic. That was near enough;
the thunderous surf, whirling, pouring, breaking against the rocky shore
and islands, was sounding in our ears, and we could see the great white
masses of foam lifted against the sky from the window of the hutch, as we
sat before the warm fire.
"You was lucky to get in last night," said the master of the hutch, an
old, weather-beaten fisherman.
"Yes," replied Picton, surveying the grey head before him with as much
complacency as he would a turnip; "and a serene old place it is when we
get in."
To this the weather-beaten replied by winking twice with both eyes.
"Rather a dangerous coast," continued Picton, stretching out one thigh
before the fire. "I say, don't you fishermen often lose your lives out
there?" and he pointed to the mouth of the harbor.
"There was only two lives lost _in seventy years_," replied the old man
(this remarkable fact was confirmed by many persons of whom we asked the
same question during our visit), "and one of them was a young man, a
stranger here, who was capsized in a boat as he was going out to a vessel
in the harbor."
"You are speaking now of lives lost in the fisheries," said Picton, "not
in the coasting trade."
"Oh!" replied the old man, shaking his head, "the coasting trade is
different; there is a many lives lost in that. Last year I had a brother
as sailed out of this in a shallop, on the same day as yon vessel,"
pointing to the Balaklava; "he went out in company with your captain; he
was going to his wedding, he thought, poor fellow, for he was to bring a
young wife home with him from Halifax, but he got caught in a storm off
Canseau, and we never heard of the shallop again. He was my youngest
brother, gentlemen."
It was strange to be seated in that old cottage, listening to so dreary a
story, and watching the storm outside. There was a wonderful fascination
in it, nevertheless, and I was not a little loth to leave the bright
hearth when the sailors from the schooner came for us and carried us on
board again to dinner.
The storm continued; but Picton and I found plenty to do that day.
Equipped with oil-skin pea-jackets and sou'-westers, with a couple of
_fish-pughs_, or poles, pointed with iron, we started on a cruise after
lobsters, in a sort of flat-bottomed skiff, peculiar to the place, called
a _dingledekooch_. And although we did not catch one lobster, yet we did
not lose sight of many interesting particulars that were scattered around
the harbor. And first of the fisheries. All the people here are directly
or indirectly engaged in this business, and to this they devote themselves
entirely; farming being scarcely thought of. I doubt whether there is a
plough in the place; certainly there was not a horse, in either the old or
new town, or a vehicle of any kind, as we found out betimes.
The fishing here, as in all other places along the coast, is carried on in
small, clinker-built boats, sharp at both ends, and carrying two sails. It
is marvellous with what dexterity these boats are handled; they are out in
all weathers, and at all times, night or day, as it happens, and although
sometimes loaded to the gunwale with fish, yet they encounter the roughest
gales, and ride out storms in safety, that would be perilous to the
largest vessels.
"I can carry all sail," said one old fellow, "when the captain there would
have to take in every rag on the schooner."
And such, too, was the fact. These boats usually sail a few miles from the
shore, rarely beyond twelve; the fish are taken with hand-lines generally,
but sometimes a set line with buoys and anchors is used. The fish, are
cured on _flakes_, or high platforms, raised upon poles from the beach, so
that one end of the staging is over the water. The cod are thrown up from
the boat to the flake by means of the fish-pugh--a sort of one-pronged,
piscatory pitchfork--and cleaned, salted, and cured there; then spread out
to dry on the flake, or on the beach, and packed for market. _Nothing can
be neater and cleaner than the whole system of curing the fish!_ popular
opinion to the contrary notwithstanding. The fishermen of Louisburgh are a
happy, contented, kind, and simple people. Living, as they do, far from
the jarring interests of the busy world, having a common revenue, for the
ocean supplies each and all alike; pursuing an occupation which is
constant discipline for body and soul; brave, sincere, and hospitable by
nature, for all of these virtues are inseparable from their relations to
each other; one can scarcely be with them, no matter how brief the visit,
without feeling a kindred sympathy; without having a vague thought of
"sometime I may be only too glad to escape from the world and accept this
humble happiness instead;" without a dreamy idea of "Perhaps _this_, after
all, is the real Arcadia!"
While I was indulging in these reflections, it was amusing to see Picton
at work! The heads and entrails of the cod-fish, thrown from the "flakes"
into the water, attract thousands of the baser tribes, such as sculpins,
flounders, and toad-fish, who feed themselves fat upon the offals, and
enjoy a peaceful life under the clear waters of the harbor. As the
dingledekooch floated silently over them, they lay perfectly quiet and
unsuspicious of danger, although within a few feet of the fatal fish-pugh,
and in an element almost as transparent as air. Lobster, during the storm,
had gone off to other grounds; but here were great flat flounders and
sculpin, within reach of the indefatigable Picton. Down went the fish-pugh
and up came the game! The bottom of the skiff was soon covered with the
spearings of the traveller. Great flounders, those sub-marine buckwheat
cakes; sculpins, bloated with rage and wind, like patriots out of office;
toad-fish, savage and vindictive as Irishmen in a riot. Down went the
fish-pugh! It was rare sport, and no person could have enjoyed it more
than Picton--except perhaps some of the veteran fishermen of Louisburgh,
who were gathered on the beach watching the doings in the dingledekooch.