1758
Louisbourg
The stormy coast of Cape Breton is indented by a small land-locked bay,
between which and the ocean lies a tongue of land dotted with a few
grazing sheep, and intersected by rows of stone that mark more or less
distinctly the lines of what once were streets. Green mounds and
embankments of earth enclose the whole space, and beneath the highest of
them yawn arches and caverns of ancient masonry. This grassy solitude
was once the "Dunkirk of America;" the vaulted caverns where the sheep
find shelter from the ram were casemates where terrified women sought
refuge from storms of shot and shell, and the shapeless green mounds
were citadel, bastion, rampart, and glacis. Here stood Louisbourg; and
not all the efforts of its conquerors, nor all the havoc of succeeding
times, have availed to efface it. Men in hundreds toiled for months with
lever, spade, and gunpowder in the work of destruction, and for more
than a century it has served as a stone quarry; but the remains of its
vast defences still tell their tale of human valor and human woe.
Stand on the mounds that were once the King's Bastion. The glistening
sea spreads eastward three thousand miles, and its waves meet their
first rebuff against this iron coast. Lighthouse Point is white with
foam; jets of spray spout from the rocks of Goat Island; mist curls in
clouds from the seething surf that lashes the crags of Black Point, and
the sea boils like a caldron among the reefs by the harbor's mouth; but
on the calm water within, the small fishing vessels rest tranquil at
their moorings. Beyond lies a hamlet of fishermen by the edge of the
water, and a few scattered dwellings dot the rough hills, bristled with
stunted firs, that gird the quiet basin; while close at hand, within the
precinct of the vanished fortress, stand two small farmhouses. All else
is a solitude of ocean, rock, marsh, and forest.[576]
[Footnote 576: Louisbourg is described as I saw it ten days before
writing the above, after an easterly gale.]
At the beginning of June, 1758, the place wore another aspect. Since the
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle vast sums had been spent in repairing and
strengthening it; and Louisbourg was the strongest fortress in French or
British America. Nevertheless it had its weaknesses. The original plan
of the works had not been fully carried out; and owing, it is said, to
the bad quality of the mortar, the masonry of the ramparts was in so
poor a condition that it had been replaced in some parts with fascines.
The circuit of the fortifications was more than a mile and a half, and
the town contained about four thousand inhabitants. The best buildings
in it were the convent, the hospital, the King's storehouses, and the
chapel and governor's quarters, which were under the same roof. Of the
private houses, only seven or eight were of stone, the rest being humble
wooden structures, suited to a population of fishermen. The garrison
consisted of the battalions of Artois, Bourgogne, Cambis, and
Volontaires Étrangers, with two companies of artillery and twenty-four
of colony troops from Canada,--in all three thousand and eighty regular
troops, besides officers;[577] and to these were added a body of armed
inhabitants and a band of Indians. In the harbor were five ships of the
line and seven frigates, carrying in all five hundred and forty-four
guns and about three thousand men.[578] Two hundred and nineteen cannon
and seventeen mortars were mounted on the walls and outworks.[579] Of
these last the most important were the Grand Battery on the shore of the
harbor opposite its mouth, and the Island Battery on the rocky islet at
its entrance.
[Footnote 577: _Journal du Siége de Louisbourg_. Twenty-nine hundred
regulars were able to bear arms when the siege began. _Houllière,
Commandant des Troupes, au Ministre, 6 Août_, 1758.]
[Footnote 578: Le Prudent, 74 guns; Entreprenant, 74; Capricieux, 64;
Célèbre, 64; Bienfaisant, 64; Apollon, 50; Chèvre, 22; Biche, 18;
Fidèle, 22; Écho, 26; Aréthuse, 36; Comète, 30. The Bizarre, 64, sailed
for France on the eighth of June, and was followed by the Comète.]
[Footnote 579: _État d'Artillerie_, appended to the Journal of Drucour.
There were also forty-four cannon in reserve.]
The strongest front of the works was on the land side, along the base of
the peninsular triangle on which the town stood. This front, about
twelve hundred yards in extent, reached from the sea on the left to the
harbor on the right, and consisted of four bastions with then-connecting
curtains, the Princess's, the Queen's, the King's, and the Dauphin's.
The King's Bastion formed part of the citadel. The glacis before it
sloped down to an extensive marsh, which, with an adjacent pond,
completely protected this part of the line. On the right, however,
towards the harbor, the ground was high enough to offer advantages to an
enemy, as was also the case, to a less degree, on the left, towards the
sea. The best defence of Louisbourg was the craggy shore, that, for
leagues on either hand, was accessible only at a few points, and even
there with difficulty. All these points were vigilantly watched.
There had been signs of the enemy from the first opening of spring. In
the intervals of fog, rain, and snow-squalls, sails were seen hovering
on the distant sea; and during the latter part of May a squadron of nine
ships cruised off the mouth of the harbor, appearing and disappearing,
sometimes driven away by gales, sometimes lost in fogs, and sometimes
approaching to within cannon-shot of the batteries. Their object was to
blockade the port,--in which they failed; for French ships had come in
at intervals, till, as we have seen, twelve of them lay safe anchored
in the harbor, with more than a year's supply of provisions for the
garrison.
At length, on the first of June, the southeastern horizon was white with
a cloud of canvas. The long-expected crisis was come. Drucour, the
governor, sent two thousand regulars, with about a thousand militia and
Indians, to guard the various landing-places; and the rest, aided by the
sailors, remained to hold the town.[580]
[Footnote 580: _Rapport de Grucour. Journal du Siége_.]
At the end of May Admiral Boscawen was at Halifax with twenty-three
ships of the line, eighteen frigates and fireships, and a fleet of
transports, on board of which were eleven thousand and six hundred
soldiers, all regulars, except five hundred provincial rangers.[581]
Amherst had not yet arrived, and on the twenty-eighth, Boscawen, in
pursuance of his orders and to prevent loss of time, put to sea without
him; but scarcely had the fleet sailed out of Halifax, when they met the
ship that bore the expected general. Amherst took command of the troops;
and the expedition held its way till the second of June, when they saw
the rocky shore-line of Cape Breton, and descried the masts of the
French squadron in the harbor of Louisbourg.
[Footnote 581: Of this force, according to Mante, only 9,900 were fit
for duty. The table printed by Knox (I. 127) shows a total of 11,112,
besides officers, artillery, and rangers. The _Authentic Account of the
Reduction of Louisbourg, by a Spectator_, puts the force at 11,326 men,
besides officers. Entick makes the whole 11,936.]
Boscawen sailed into Gabarus Bay. The sea was rough; but in the
afternoon Amherst, Lawrence, and Wolfe, with a number of naval officers,
reconnoitred the shore in boats, coasting it for miles, and approaching
it as near as the French batteries would permit. The rocks were white
with surf, and every accessible point was strongly guarded. Boscawen saw
little chance of success. He sent for his captains, and consulted them
separately. They thought, like him, that it would be rash to attempt a
landing, and proposed a council of war. One of them alone, an old sea
officer named Ferguson advised his commander to take the responsibility
himself, hold no council, and make the attempt at every risk. Boscawen
took his advice, and declared that he would not leave Gabarus Bay till
he had fulfilled his instructions and set the troops on shore.[582]
[Footnote 582: Entick, III. 224.]
West of Louisbourg there were three accessible places, Freshwater Cove,
four miles from the town, and Flat Point, and White Point, which were
nearer, the last being within a mile of the fortifications. East of the
town there was an inlet called Lorambec, also available for landing. In
order to distract the attention of the enemy, it was resolved to
threaten all these places, and to form the troops into three divisions,
two of which, under Lawrence and Whitmore, were to advance towards Flat
Point and White Point, while a detached regiment was to make a feint at
Lorambec. Wolfe, with the third division, was to make the real attack
and try to force a landing at Freshwater Cove, which, as it proved, was
the most strongly defended of all. When on shore Wolfe was an habitual
invalid, and when at sea every heave of the ship made him wretched; but
his ardor was unquenchable. Before leaving England he wrote to a friend:
"Being of the profession of arms, I would seek all occasions to serve;
and therefore have thrown myself in the way of the American war, though
I know that the very passage threatens my life, and that my constitution
must be utterly ruined and undone."
On the next day, the third, the surf was so high that nothing could be
attempted. On the fourth there was a thick fog and a gale. The frigate
"Trent" struck on a rock, and some of the transports were near being
stranded. On the fifth there was another fog and a raging surf. On the
sixth there was fog, with rain in the morning and better weather towards
noon, whereupon the signal was made and the troops entered the boats;
but the sea rose again, and they were ordered back to the ships. On the
seventh more fog and more surf till night, when the sea grew calmer, and
orders were given for another attempt. At two in the morning of the
eighth the troops were in the boats again. At daybreak the frigates of
the squadron, anchoring before each point of real or pretended attack,
opened a fierce cannonade on the French intrenchments; and, a quarter of
an hour after, the three divisions rowed towards the shore. That of the
left, under Wolfe, consisted of four companies of grenadiers, with the
light infantry and New England rangers, followed and supported by
Fraser's Highlanders and eight more companies of grenadiers. They pulled
for Freshwater Cove. Here there was a crescent-shaped beach, a quarter
of a mile long, with rocks at each end. On the shore above, about a
thousand Frenchmen, under Lieutenant-Colonel de Saint-Julien, lay behind
entrenchments covered in front by spruce and fir trees, felled and laid
on the ground with the tops outward.[583] Eight cannon and swivels were
planted to sweep every part of the beach and its approaches, and these
pieces were masked by young evergreens stuck in the ground before them.
[Footnote 583: Drucour reports 985 soldiers as stationed here under
Saint-Julien there were also some Indians. Freshwater Cove, otherwise
Kennington Cove, was called La Cormorandière by the French.]
The English were allowed to come within close range unmolested. Then the
batteries opened, and a deadly storm of grape and musketry was poured
upon the boats. It was clear in an instant that to advance farther would
be destruction; and Wolfe waved his hand as a signal to sheer off. At
some distance on the right, and little exposed to the fire, were three
boats of light infantry under Lieutenants Hopkins and Brown and Ensign
Grant; who, mistaking the signal or wilfully misinterpreting it, made
directly for the shore before them. It was a few roads east of the
beach; a craggy coast and a strand strewn with rocks and lashed with
breakers, but sheltered from the cannon by a small projecting point. The
three officers leaped ashore, followed by their men. Wolfe saw the
movement, and hastened to support it. The boat of Major Scott, who
commanded the light infantry and rangers, next came up, and was stove in
an instant; but Scott gained the shore, climbed the crags, and found
himself with ten men in front of some seventy French and Indians. Half
his followers were killed and wounded, and three bullets were shot
through his clothes; but with admirable gallantry he held his ground
till others came to his aid.[584] The remaining boats now reached the
landing. Many were stove among the rocks, and others were overset; some
of the men were dragged back by the surf and drowned; some lost their
muskets, and were drenched to the skin: but the greater part got safe
ashore. Among the foremost was seen the tall, attenuated form of
Brigadier Wolfe, armed with nothing but a cane, as he leaped into the
surf and climbed the crags with his soldiers. As they reached the top
they formed in compact order, and attacked and carried with the bayonet
the nearest French battery, a few rods distant. The division of
Lawrence soon came up; and as the attention of the enemy was now
distracted, they made their landing with little opposition at the
farther end of the beach whither they were followed by Amherst himself.
The French, attacked on right and left, and fearing, with good reason,
that they would be cut off from the town, abandoned all their cannon and
fled into the woods. About seventy of them were captured and fifty
killed. The rest, circling among the hills and around the marshes, made
their way to Louisbourg, and those at the intermediate posts joined
their flight. The English followed through a matted growth of firs till
they reached the cleared ground; when the cannon, opening on them from
the ramparts, stopped the pursuit. The first move of the great game was
played and won.[585]
[Footnote 584: Pichon, _Mémoires du Cap-Breton_, 284.]
[Footnote 585: _Journal of Amherst_, in Mante, 117. _Amherst to Pitt, 11
June, 1758_. _Authentic Account of the Reduction of Louisbourg, by a
Spectator_, 11. _General Orders of Amherst, 3-7 June, 1759. Letter from
an Officer_, in Knox, I. 191; Entick, III. 225. The French accounts
generally agree in essentials with the English. The English lost one
hundred and nine, killed, wounded, and drowned.]
Amherst made his camp just beyond range of the French cannon, and Flat
Point Cove was chosen as the landing-place of guns and stores. Clearing
the ground, making roads, and pitching tents filled the rest of the day.
At night there was a glare of flames from the direction of the town. The
French had abandoned the Grand Battery after setting fire to the
buildings in it and to the houses and fish-stages along the shore of the
harbor. During the following days stores were landed as fast as the surf
would permit: but the task was so difficult that from first to last more
than a hundred boats were stove in accomplishing it; and such was the
violence of the waves that none of the siege-guns could be got ashore
till the eighteenth. The camp extended two miles along a stream that
flowed down to the Cove among the low, woody hills that curved around
the town and harbor. Redoubts were made to protect its front, and
blockhouses to guard its left and rear from the bands of Acadians known
to be hovering in the woods.
Wolfe, with twelve hundred men, made his way six or seven miles round
the harbor, took possession of the battery at Lighthouse Point which the
French had abandoned, planted guns and mortars, and opened fire on the
Island Battery that guarded the entrance. Other guns were placed at
different points along the shore, and soon opened on the French ships.
The ships and batteries replied. The artillery fight raged night and
day; till on the twenty-fifth the island guns were dismounted and
silenced. Wolfe then strengthened his posts, secured his communications,
and returned to the main army in front of the town.
Amherst had reconnoitred the ground and chosen a hillock at the edge of
the marsh, less than half a mile from the ramparts, as the point for
opening his trenches. A road with an epaulement to protect it must first
be made to the spot; and as the way was over a tract of deep mud
covered with water-weeds and moss, the labor was prodigious. A thousand
men worked at it day and night under the fire of the town and ships.
When the French looked landward from their ramparts they could see
scarcely a sign of the impending storm. Behind them Wolfe's cannon were
playing busily from Lighthouse Point and the heights around the harbor;
but, before them, the broad flat marsh and the low hills seemed almost a
solitude. Two miles distant, they could descry some of the English
tents; but the greater part were hidden by the inequalities of the
ground. On the right, a prolongation of the harbor reached nearly half a
mile beyond the town, ending in a small lagoon formed by a projecting
sandbar, and known as the Barachois. Near this bar lay moored the little
frigate "Aréthuse," under a gallant officer named Vauquelin. Her
position was a perilous one; but so long as she could maintain it she
could sweep with her fire the ground before the works, and seriously
impede the operations of the enemy. The other naval captains were less
venturous; and when the English landed, they wanted to leave the harbor
and save their ships. Drucour insisted that they should stay to aid the
defence, and they complied; but soon left their moorings and anchored as
close as possible under the guns of the town, in order to escape the
fire of Wolfe's batteries. Hence there was great murmuring among the
military officers, who would have had them engage the hostile guns at
short range. The frigate "Écho," under cover of a fog, had been sent to
Quebec for aid; but she was chased and captured; and, a day or two
after, the French saw her pass the mouth of the harbor with an English
flag at her mast-head.
When Wolfe had silenced the Island Battery, a new and imminent danger
threatened Louisbourg. Boscawen might enter the harbor, overpower the
French naval force, and cannonade the town on its weakest side.
Therefore Drucour resolved to sink four large ships at the entrance; and
on a dark and foggy night this was successfully accomplished. Two more
vessels were afterwards sunk, and the harbor was then thought safe.
The English had at last finished their preparations, and were urging on
the siege with determined vigor. The landward view was a solitude no
longer. They could be seen in multitudes piling earth and fascines
beyond the hillock at the edge of the marsh. On the twenty-fifth they
occupied the hillock itself, and fortified themselves there under a
shower of bombs. Then they threw up earth on the right, and pushed
their approaches towards the Barachois, in spite of a hot fire from the
frigate "Aréthuse." Next they appeared on the left towards the sea about
a third of a mile from the Princess's Bastion. It was Wolfe, with a
strong detachment, throwing up a redoubt and opening an entrenchment.
Late on the night of the ninth of July six hundred French troops sallied
to interrupt the work. The English grenadiers in the trenches fought
stubbornly with bayonet and sword, but were forced back to the second
line, where a desperate conflict in the dark took place; and after
severe loss on both sides the French were driven back. Some days before,
there had been another sortie on the opposite side, near the Barachois,
resulting in a repulse of the French and the seizure by Wolfe of a more
advanced position.
Various courtesies were exchanged between the two commanders. Drucour,
on occasion of a flag of truce, wrote to Amherst that there was a
surgeon of uncommon skill in Louisbourg, whose services were at the
command of any English officer who might need them. Amherst on his part
sent to his enemy letters and messages from wounded Frenchmen in his
hands, adding his compliments to Madame Drucour, with an expression of
regret for the disquiet to which she was exposed, begging her at the
same time to accept a gift of pineapples from the West Indies. She
returned his courtesy by sending him a basket of wine; after which
amenities the cannon roared again. Madame Drucour was a woman of heroic
spirit. Every day she was on the ramparts, where her presence roused the
soldiers to enthusiasm; and every day with her own hand she fired three
cannon to encourage them.
The English lines grew closer and closer, and their fire more and more
destructive. Desgouttes, the naval commander, withdrew the "Aréthuse"
from her exposed position, where her fire had greatly annoyed the
besiegers. The shot-holes in her sides were plugged up, and in the dark
night of the fourteenth of July she was towed through the obstructions
in the mouth of the harbor, and sent to France to report the situation
of Louisbourg. More fortunate than her predecessor, she escaped the
English in a fog. Only five vessels now remained afloat in the harbor,
and these were feebly manned, as the greater part of their officers and
crews had come ashore, to the number of two thousand, lodging under
tents in the town, amid the scarcely suppressed murmurs of the army
officers.
On the eighth of July news came that the partisan Boishébert was
approaching with four hundred Acadians, Canadians, and Micmacs to
attack the English outposts and detachments. He did little or nothing,
however, besides capturing a few stragglers. On the sixteenth, early in
the evening, a party of English, led by Wolfe, dashed forward, drove off
a band of French volunteers, seized a rising ground called
Hauteur-de-la-Potence, or Gallows Hill, and began to entrench themselves
scarcely three hundred yards from the Dauphin's Bastion. The town opened
on them furiously with grapeshot; but in the intervals of the firing the
sound of their picks and spades could plainly be heard. In the morning
they were seen throwing up earth like moles as they burrowed their way
forward; and on the twenty-first they opened another parallel, within
two hundred yards of the rampart. Still their sappers pushed on. Every
day they had more guns in position, and on right and left their fire
grew hotter. Their pickets made a lodgment along the foot of the glacis,
and fired up the slope at the French in the covered way.
The twenty-first was a memorable day. In the afternoon a bomb fell on
the ship "Célèbre" and set her on fire. An explosion followed. The few
men on board could not save her, and she drifted from her moorings. The
wind blew the flames into the rigging of the "Entreprenant," and then
into that of the "Capricieux." At night all three were in full blaze;
for when the fire broke out the English batteries turned on them a
tempest of shot and shell to prevent it from being extinguished. The
glare of the triple conflagration lighted up the town, the trenches, the
harbor, and the surrounding hills, while the burning ships shot off
their guns at random as they slowly drifted westward, and grounded at
last near the Barachois. In the morning they were consumed to the
water's edge; and of all the squadron the "Prudent" and the
"Bienfaisant" alone were left.
In the citadel, of which the King's Bastion formed the front, there was
a large oblong stone building containing the chapel, lodgings for men
and officers, and at the southern end the quarters of the Governor. On
the morning after the burning of the ships a shell fell through the roof
among a party of soldiers in the chamber below, burst, and set the place
on fire. In half an hour the chapel and all the northern part of the
building were in flames; and no sooner did the smoke rise above the
bastion than the English threw into it a steady shower of missiles. Yet
soldiers, sailors, and inhabitants hastened to the spot, and labored
desperately to check the fire. They saved the end occupied by Drucour
and his wife, but all the rest was destroyed. Under the adjacent
rampart were the casemates, one of which was crowded with wounded
officers, and the rest with women and children seeking shelter in these
subterranean dens. Before the entrances there was a long barrier of
timber to protect them from exploding shells; and as the wind blew the
flames towards it, there was danger that it would take fire and
suffocate those within. They rushed out, crazed with fright, and ran
hither and thither with outcries and shrieks amid the storm of iron.
In the neighboring Queen's Bastion was a large range of barracks built
of wood by the New England troops after their capture of the fortress in
1745. So flimsy and combustible was it that the French writers call it a
"house of cards" and "a paper of matches." Here were lodged the greater
part of the garrison: but such was the danger of fire, that they were
now ordered to leave it; and they accordingly lay in the streets or
along the foot of the ramparts, under shelters of timber which gave some
little protection against bombs. The order was well timed; for on the
night after the fire in the King's Bastion, a shell filled with
combustibles set this building also in flames. A fearful scene ensued.
All the English batteries opened upon it. The roar of mortars and
cannon, the rushing and screaming of round-shot and grape, the hissing
of fuses and the explosion of grenades and bombs mingled with a storm of
musketry from the covered way and trenches; while, by the glare of the
conflagration, the English regiments were seen drawn up in battle array,
before the ramparts, as if preparing for an assault.
Two days after, at one o'clock in the morning, a burst of loud cheers
was heard in the distance, followed by confused cries and the noise of
musketry, which lasted but a moment. Six hundred English sailors had
silently rowed into the harbor and seized the two remaining ships, the
"Prudent" and the "Bienfaisant." After the first hubbub all was silent
for half an hour. Then a light glowed through the thick fog that covered
the water. The "Prudent" was burning. Being aground with the low tide,
her captors had set her on fire, allowing the men on board to escape to
the town in her boats. The flames soon wrapped her from stem to stern;
and as the broad glare pierced the illumined mists, the English sailors,
reckless of shot and shell, towed her companion-ship, with all on board,
to a safe anchorage under Wolfe's batteries.
The position of the besieged was deplorable. Nearly a fourth of their
number were in the hospitals; while the rest, exhausted with incessant
toil, could find no place to snatch an hour of sleep; "and yet," says an
officer, "they still show ardor." "To-day," he again says, on the
twenty-fourth, "the fire of the place is so weak that it is more like
funeral guns than a defence." On the front of the town only four cannon
could fire at all. The rest were either dismounted or silenced by the
musketry from the trenches. The masonry of the ramparts had been shaken
by the concussion of their own guns; and now, in the Dauphin's and
King's bastions, the English shot brought it down in masses. The
trenches had been pushed so close on the rising grounds at the right
that a great part of the covered way was enfiladed, while a battery on a
hill across the harbor swept the whole front with a flank fire. Amherst
had ordered the gunners to spare the houses of the town; but, according
to French accounts, the order had little effect, for shot and shell fell
everywhere. "There is not a house in the place," says the Diary just
quoted, "that has not felt the effects of this formidable artillery.
From yesterday morning till seven o'clock this evening we reckon that a
thousand or twelve hundred bombs, great and small, have been thrown into
the town, accompanied all the time by the fire of forty pieces of
cannon, served with an activity not often seen. The hospital and the
houses around it, which also serve as hospitals, are attacked with
cannon and mortar. The surgeon trembles as he amputates a limb amid
cries of _Gare la bombe!_ and leaves his patient in the midst of the
operation, lest he should share his fate. The sick and wounded,
stretched on mattresses, utter cries of pain, which do not cease till a
shot or the bursting of a shell ends them."[586] On the twenty-sixth the
last cannon was silenced in front of the town, and the English batteries
had made a breach which seemed practicable for assault.
[Footnote 586: Early in the siege Drucour wrote to Amherst asking that
the hospitals should be exempt from fire. Amherst answered that shot and
shell might fall on any part of so small a town, but promised to insure
the sick and wounded from molestation if Drucour would send them either
to the island at the mouth of the harbor, or to any of the ships, if
anchored apart from the rest. The offer was declined, for reasons not
stated. Drucour gives the correspondence in his Diary.]
On the day before, Drucour, with his chief officers and the engineer,
Franquet, had made the tour of the covered way, and examined the state
of the defences. All but Franquet were for offering to capitulate. Early
on the next morning a council of war was held, at which were present
Drucour, Franquet, Desgouttes, naval commander, Houllière, commander of
the regulars, and the several chiefs of battalions. Franquet presented a
memorial setting forth the state of the fortifications. As it was he who
had reconstructed and repaired them, he was anxious to show the quality
of his work in the best light possible; and therefore, in the view of
his auditors, he understated the effects of the English fire. Hence an
altercation arose, ending in a unanimous decision to ask for terms.
Accordingly, at ten o'clock, a white flag was displayed over the breach
in the Dauphin's Bastion, and an officer named Loppinot was sent out
with offers to capitulate. The answer was prompt and stern: the garrison
must surrender as prisoners of war; a definite reply must be given
within an hour; in case of refusal the place will be attacked by land
and sea.[587]
[Footnote 587: Mante and other English writers give the text of this
reply.]
Great was the emotion in the council; and one of its members,
D'Anthonay, lieutenant-colonel of the battalion of Volontaires
Étrangers, was sent to propose less rigorous terms. Amherst would not
speak with him; and jointly with Boscawen despatched this note to the
Governor:--
Sir,--We have just received the reply which it has pleased your
Excellency to make as to the conditions of the capitulation offered
you. We shall not change in the least our views regarding them. It
depends on your Excellency to accept them or not; and you will have
the goodness to give your answer, yes or no, within half an hour.
We have the honor to be, etc.,
E. BOSCAWEN.
J. AMHERST.[588]
Drucour answered as follows:--
Gentlemen,--To reply to your Excellencies in as few words as
possible, I have the honor to repeat that my position also remains
the same, and that I persist in my first resolution.
I have the honor to be, etc.,
The Chevalier de Drucour
[Footnote 588: Translated from the Journal of Drucour.]
In other words, he refused the English terms, and declared his purpose
to abide the assault. Loppinot was sent back to the English camp with
this note of defiance. He was no sooner gone than Prévost, the
intendant, an officer of functions purely civil, brought the Governor a
memorial which, with or without the knowledge of the military
authorities, he had drawn up in anticipation of the emergency. "The
violent resolution which the council continues to hold," said this
document, "obliges me, for the good of the state, the preservation of
the King's subjects, and the averting of horrors shocking to humanity,
to lay before your eyes the consequences that may ensue. What will
become of the four thousand souls who compose the families of this town,
of the thousand or twelve hundred sick in the hospitals, and the
officers and crews of our unfortunate ships? They will be delivered over
to carnage and the rage of an unbridled soldiery, eager for plunder, and
impelled to deeds of horror by pretended resentment at what has formerly
happened in Canada. Thus they will all be destroyed, and the memory of
their fate will live forever in our colonies.... It remains, Monsieur,"
continues the paper, "to remind you that the councils you have held thus
far have been composed of none but military officers. I am not surprised
at their views. The glory of the King's arm and the honor of their
several corps have inspired them. You and I alone are charged with the
administration of the colony and the care of the King's subjects who
compose it. These gentlemen, therefore, have had no regard for them.
They think only of themselves and their soldiers, whose business it is
to encounter the utmost extremity of peril. It is at the prayer of an
intimidated people that I lay before you the considerations specified in
this memorial."
"In view of these considerations," writes Drucour, "joined to the
impossibility of resisting an assault, M. le Chevalier de Courserac
undertook in my behalf to run after the bearer of my answer to the
English commander and bring it back." It is evident that the bearer of
the note had been in no hurry to deliver it, for he had scarcely got
beyond the fortifications when Courserac overtook and stopped him.
D'Anthonay, with Duvivier, major of the battalion of Artois, and
Loppinot, the first messenger, was then sent to the English camp,
empowered to accept the terms imposed. An English spectator thus
describes their arrival: "A lieutenant-colonel came running out of the
garrison, making signs at a distance, and bawling out as loud as he
could, '_We accept! We accept!_' He was followed by two others; and they
were all conducted to General Amherst's headquarters."[589] At eleven
o'clock at night they returned with the articles of capitulation and the
following letter:--
Sir,--We have the honor to send your Excellency the articles of
capitulation signed.
Lieutenant-Colonel D'Anthonay has not failed to speak in behalf of
the inhabitants of the town; and it is nowise our intention to
distress them, but to give them all the aid in our power.
Your Excellency will have the goodness to sign a duplicate of the
articles and send it to us.
It only remains to assure your Excellency that we shall with great
pleasure seize every opportunity to convince your Excellency that
we are with the most perfect consideration,
Sir, your Excellency's most obedient servants,
E. BOSCAWEN. J. AMHERST.
[Footnote 589: _Authentic Account of the Siege of Louisbourg, by a
Spectator_.]
The articles stipulated that the garrison should be sent to England,
prisoners of war, in British ships; that all artillery, arms, munitions,
and stores, both in Louisbourg and elsewhere on the Island of Cape
Breton, as well as on Isle St.-Jean, now Prince Edward's Island, should
be given up intact; that the gate of the Dauphin's Bastion should be
delivered to the British troops at eight o'clock in the morning; and
that the garrison should lay down their arms at noon. The victors, on
their part, promised to give the French sick and wounded the same care
as their own, and to protect private property from pillage.
Drucour signed the paper at midnight, and in the morning a body of
grenadiers took possession of the Dauphin's Gate. The rude soldiery
poured in, swarthy with wind and sun, and begrimed with smoke and dust;
the garrison, drawn up on the esplanade, flung down their muskets and
marched from the ground with tears of rage; the cross of St. George
floated over the shattered rampart; and Louisbourg, with the two great
islands that depended on it, passed to the British Crown. Guards were
posted, a stern discipline was enforced, and perfect order maintained.
The conquerors and the conquered exchanged greetings, and the English
general was lavish of courtesies to the brave lady who had aided the
defence so well. "Every favor she asked was granted," says a Frenchman
present.
Drucour and his garrison had made a gallant defence. It had been his aim
to prolong the siege till it should be too late for Amherst to
co-operate with Abercromby in an attack on Canada; and in this, at
least, he succeeded.
Five thousand six hundred and thirty-seven officers, soldiers, and
sailors were prisoners in the hands of the victors. Eighteen mortars and
two hundred and twenty-one cannon were found in the town, along with a
great quantity of arms, munitions, and stores.[590] At the middle of
August such of the prisoners as were not disabled by wounds or sickness
were embarked for England, and the merchants and inhabitants were sent
to France. Brigadier Whitmore, as governor of Louisbourg, remained with
four regiments to hold guard over the desolation they had made.
[Footnote 590: _Account of the Guns, Mortars, Shot, Shell, etc., found
in the Town of Louisbourg upon its Surrender this day_, signed _Jeffrey
Amherst, 27 July, 1758._]
The fall of the French stronghold was hailed in England with noisy
rapture. Addresses of congratulation to the King poured in from all the
cities of the kingdom, and the captured flags were hung in St. Paul's
amid the roar of cannon and the shouts of the populace. The provinces
shared these rejoicings. Sermons of thanksgiving resounded from
countless New England pulpits. At Newport there were fireworks and
illuminations; and, adds the pious reporter, "We have reason to believe
that Christians will make wise and religious improvement of so signal a
favor of Divine Providence." At Philadelphia a like display was seen,
with music and universal ringing of bells. At Boston "a stately bonfire
like a pyramid was kindled on the top of Fort Hill, which made a lofty
and prodigious blaze;" though here certain jealous patriots protested
against celebrating a victory won by British regulars, and not by New
England men. At New York there was a grand official dinner at the
Province Arms in Broadway, where every loyal toast was echoed by the
cannon of Fort George; and illuminations and fireworks closed the
day.[591] In the camp of Abercromby at Lake George, Chaplain Cleaveland,
of Bagley's Massachusetts regiment, wrote: '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."[592] But
nowhere did the tidings find a warmer welcome than in the small detached
forts scattered through the solitudes of Nova Scotia, where the military
exiles, restless from inaction, listened with greedy ears for every word
from the great world whence they were banished. So slow were their
communications with it that the fall of Louisbourg was known in England
before it had reached them, all. Captain John Knox, then in garrison at
Annapolis, tells how it was greeted there more than five weeks after the
event. It was the sixth of September. A sloop from Boston was seen
coming up the bay. Soldiers and officers ran down to the wharf to ask
for news. "Every soul," says Knox, "was impatient, yet shy of asking; at
length, the vessel being come near enough to be spoken to, I called out,
'What news from Louisbourg?' To which the master simply replied, and
with some gravity, 'Nothing strange.' This answer, which was so coldly
delivered, threw us all into great consternation, and we looked at each
other without being able to speak; some of us even turned away with an
intent to return to the fort. At length one of our soldiers, not yet
satisfied, 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 have
never heard it before, I have got a good parcel of letters for you now.'
If our apprehensions were great at first, words are insufficient to
express our transports at this speech, the latter part of which we
hardly waited for; but instantly all hats flew off, and we made the
neighboring woods resound with our cheers and huzzas for almost half an
hour. The master of the sloop was amazed beyond expression, and declared
he thought we had heard of the success of our arms eastward before, and
had sought to banter him."[593] At night there was a grand bonfire and
universal festivity in the fort and village.
[Footnote 591: These particulars are from the provincial newspapers.]
[Footnote 592: Cleaveland, _Journal_.]
[Footnote 593: Knox, _Historical Journal_, I. 158.]
Amherst proceeded to complete his conquest by the subjection of all the
adjacent possessions of France. Major Dalling was sent to occupy Port
Espagnol, now Sydney. Colonel Monckton was despatched to the Bay of
Fundy and the River St. John with an order "to destroy the vermin who
are settled there."[594] Lord Rollo, with the thirty-fifth regiment and
two battalions of the sixtieth, received the submission of Isle
St.-Jean, and tried to remove the inhabitants,--with small success; for
out of more than four thousand he could catch but seven hundred.[595]
[Footnote 594: _Orders of Amherst to Wolfe, 15 Aug. 1758; Ibid, to
Monckton, 24 Aug. 1758; Report of Monckton, 12 Nov. 1758._]
[Footnote 595: _Villejouin, commandant à l'Isle St.-Jean, au Ministre, 8
Sept. 1758._]
The ardent and indomitable Wolfe had been the life of the siege.
Wherever there was need of a quick eye, a prompt decision, and a bold
dash, there his lank figure was always in the front. Yet he was only
half pleased with what had been done. The capture of Louisbourg, he
thought, should be but the prelude of greater conquests; and he had
hoped that the fleet and army would sail up the St. Lawrence and attack
Quebec. Impetuous and impatient by nature, and irritable with disease,
he chafed at the delay that followed the capitulation, and wrote to his
father a few days after it: "We are gathering strawberries and other
wild fruits of the country, with a seeming indifference about what is
doing in other parts of the world. Our army, however, on the continent
wants our help." Growing more anxious, he sent Amherst a note to ask his
intentions; and the General replied, "What I most wish to do is to go
to Quebec. I have proposed it to the Admiral, and yesterday he seemed to
think it impracticable." On which Wolfe wrote again: "If the Admiral
will not carry us to Quebec, reinforcements should certainly be sent to
the continent without losing a moment. This damned French garrison take
up our time and attention, which might be better bestowed. The
transports are ready, and a small convoy would carry a brigade to Boston
or New York. With the rest of the troops we might make an offensive and
destructive war in the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I beg
pardon for this freedom, but I cannot look coolly upon the bloody
inroads of those hell-hounds, the Canadians; and if nothing further is
to be done, I must desire leave to quit the army."
Amherst answered that though he had meant at first to go to Quebec with
the whole army, late events on the continent made it impossible; and
that he now thought it best to go with five or six regiments to the aid
of Abercromby. He asked Wolfe to continue to communicate his views to
him, and would not hear for a moment of his leaving the army; adding, "I
know nothing that can tend more to His Majesty's service than your
assisting in it." Wolfe again wrote to his commander, with whom he was
on terms of friendship: "An offensive, daring kind of war will awe the
Indians and ruin the French. Blockhouses and a trembling defensive
encourage the meanest scoundrels to attack us. If you will attempt to
cut up New France by the roots, I will come with pleasure to assist."
Amherst, with such speed as his deliberate nature would permit, sailed
with six regiments for Boston to reinforce Abercromby at Lake George,
while Wolfe set out on an errand but little to his liking. He had orders
to proceed to Gaspé, Miramichi, and other settlements on the Gulf of St.
Lawrence, destroy them, and disperse their inhabitants; a measure of
needless and unpardonable rigor, which, while detesting it, he executed
with characteristic thoroughness. "Sir Charles Hardy and I," he wrote to
his father, "are preparing to rob the fishermen of their nets and burn
their huts. When that great exploit is at an end, I return to
Louisbourg, and thence to England." Having finished the work, he wrote
to Amherst: "Your orders were carried into execution. We have done a
great deal of mischief, and spread the terror of His Majesty's arms
through the Gulf, but have added nothing to the reputation of them." The
destruction of property was great; yet, as Knox writes, "he would not
suffer the least barbarity to be committed upon the persons of the
wretched inhabitants."[596]
[Footnote 596: "Les Anglais ont très-bien traités les prisonniers qu'ils
ont faits dans cette partie" [_Gaspé_, etc]. _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 4
Nov. 1758._]
He returned to Louisbourg, and sailed for England to recruit his
shattered health for greater conflicts.
NOTE. Four long and minute French diaries of the siege of Louisbourg are
before me. The first, that of Drucour, covers a hundred and six folio
pages, and contains his correspondence with Amherst, Boscawen, and
Desgouttes. The second is that of the naval captain Tourville, commander
of the ship "Capricieux," and covers fifty pages. The third is by an
officer of the garrison whose name does not appear. The fourth, of about
a hundred pages, is by another officer of the garrison, and is also
anonymous. It is an excellent record of what passed each day, and of the
changing conditions, moral and physical, of the besieged. These four
Journals, though clearly independent of each other, agree in nearly all
essential particulars. I have also numerous letters from the principal
officers, military, naval, and civil, engaged in the defence,--Drucour,
Desgouttes, Houllière, Beaussier, Marolles, Tourville, Courserac,
Franquet, Villejouin, Prévost, and Querdisien. These, with various other
documents relating to the siege, were copied from the originals in the
Archives de la Marine. Among printed authorities on the French side may
be mentioned Pichon, _Lettres et Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire du
Cap-Breton,_ and the _Campaign of Louisbourg_, by the Chevalier
Johnstone, a Scotch Jacobite serving under Drucour.
The chief authorities on the English side are the official Journal of
Amherst, printed in the _London Magazine_ and in other contemporary
periodicals, and also in Mante, _History of the Late War;_ five letters
from Amherst to Pitt, written during the siege (Public Record Office);
an excellent private Journal called _An Authentic Account of the
Reduction of Louisbourg, by a Spectator_, parts of which have been
copied verbatim by Entick without acknowledgement; the admirable Journal
of Captain John Knox, which contains numerous letters and orders
relating to the siege; and the correspondence of Wolfe contained in his
Life by Wright. Before me is the Diary of a captain or subaltern in the
army of Amherst at Louisbourg, found in the garret of an old house at
Windsor, Nova Scotia, on an estate belonging in 1760 to Chief Justice
Deschamps. I owe the use of it to the kindness of George Wiggins, Esq.,
of Windsor, N.S. Mante gives an excellent plan of the siege operations,
and another will be found in Jefferys, _Natural and Civil History of
French Dominions in North America_.