1744, 1745.
A MAD SCHEME.
WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION.--THE FRENCH SEIZE CANSEAU
AND ATTACK ANNAPOLIS.--PLAN OF REPRISAL.--WILLIAM
VAUGHAN.--GOVERNOR SHIRLEY: HE ADVISES AN ATTACK ON
LOUISBOURG.--THE ASSEMBLY REFUSES, BUT AT LAST
CONSENTS.--PREPARATION.--WILLIAM PEPPERRELL.--GEORGE
WHITEFIELD.--PARSON MOODY.--THE SOLDIERS.--THE PROVINCIAL
NAVY.--COMMODORE WARREN.--SHIRLEY AS AN AMATEUR SOLDIER.--THE
FLEET SAILS.
The Peace of Utrecht left unsettled the perilous questions of boundary
between the rival powers in North America, and they grew more perilous
every day. Yet the quarrel was not yet quite ripe; and though the
French governor, Vaudreuil, and perhaps also his successor,
Beauharnois, seemed willing to precipitate it, the courts of London
and Versailles still hesitated to appeal to the sword. Now, as before,
it was a European, and not an American, quarrel that was to set the
world on fire. The War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1744.
When Frederic of Prussia seized Silesia and began that bloody
conflict, it meant that packs of howling savages would again spread
fire and carnage along the New England border.
News of the declaration of war reached Louisbourg some weeks before it 60
reached Boston, and the French military governor, Duquesnel, thought
he saw an opportunity to strike an unexpected blow for the profit of
France and his own great honor.
One of the French inhabitants of Louisbourg has left us a short sketch
of Duquesnel, whom he calls “capricious, of an uncertain temper,
inclined to drink, and when in his cups neither reasonable or
civil.”[58] He adds that the governor had offended nearly every
officer in the garrison, and denounces him as the “chief cause of our
disasters.” When Duquesnel heard of the declaration of war, his first
thought was to strike some blow before the English were warned. The
fishing-station of Canseau was a tempting prize, being a near and an
inconvenient neighbor, at the southern end of the Strait of Canseau,
which separates the Acadian peninsula from the island of Cape Breton,
or Isle Royale, of which Louisbourg was the place of strength. Nothing
was easier than to seize Canseau, which had no defence but a wooden
redoubt built by the fishermen, and occupied by about eighty
Englishmen thinking no danger. Early in May, Duquesnel sent Captain
Duvivier against it, with six hundred, or, as the English say, nine
hundred soldiers and sailors, escorted by two small armed vessels. The
English surrendered, on condition of being sent to Boston, and the 61
miserable hamlet, with its wooden citadel, was burned to the ground.
Thus far successful, the governor addressed himself to the capture of
Annapolis,--which meant the capture of all Acadia. Duvivier was again
appointed to the command. His heart was in the work, for he was a
descendant of La Tour, feudal claimant of Acadia in the preceding
century. Four officers and ninety regular troops were given him,[59]
and from three to four hundred Micmac and Malicite Indians joined him
on the way. The Micmacs, under command, it is said, of their
missionary, Le Loutre, had already tried to surprise the English fort,
but had only succeeded in killing two unarmed stragglers in the
adjacent garden.[60]
Annapolis, from the neglect and indifference of the British ministry,
was still in such a state of dilapidation that its sandy ramparts were
crumbling into the ditches, and the cows of the garrison walked over
them at their pleasure. It was held by about a hundred effective men
under Major Mascarene, a French Protestant whose family had been
driven into exile by the persecutions that followed the revocation of
the Edict of Nantes. Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, sent him a
small reinforcement of militia; but as most of these came without
arms, and as Mascarene had few or none to give them, they proved of 62
doubtful value.
Duvivier and his followers, white and red, appeared before the fort in
August, made their camp behind the ridge of a hill that overlooked it,
and marched towards the rampart; but being met by a discharge of
cannon-shot, they gave up all thoughts of an immediate assault, began
a fusillade under cover of darkness, and kept the garrison on the
alert all night.
Duvivier had looked for help from the Acadians of the neighboring
village, who were French in blood, faith, and inclination. They would
not join him openly, fearing the consequences if his attack should
fail; but they did what they could without committing themselves, and
made a hundred and fifty scaling-ladders for the besiegers. Duvivier
now returned to his first plan of an assault, which, if made with
vigor, could hardly have failed. Before attempting it, he sent
Mascarene a flag of truce to tell him that he hourly expected two
powerful armed ships from Louisbourg, besides a reinforcement of two
hundred and fifty regulars, with cannon, mortars, and other enginery
of war. At the same time he proposed favorable terms of capitulation,
not to take effect till the French war-ships should have appeared.
Mascarene refused all terms, saying that when he saw the French ships,
he would consider what to do, and meanwhile would defend himself as he
could.
The expected ships were the “Ardent” and the “Caribou,” then at
Louisbourg. A French writer says that when Duquesnel directed their 63
captains to Hail for Annapolis and aid in its capture, they refused,
saying that they had no orders from the court.[61] Duvivier protracted
the parley with Mascarene, and waited in vain for the promised succor.
At length the truce was broken off, and the garrison, who had profited
by it to get rest and sleep, greeted the renewal of hostilities with
three cheers.
Now followed three weeks of desultory attacks; but there was no
assault, though Duvivier had boasted that he had the means of making a
successful one. He waited for the ships which did not come, and kept
the Acadians at work in making ladders and fire-arrows. At length,
instead of aid from Louisbourg, two small vessels appeared from
Boston, bringing Mascarene a reinforcement of fifty Indian rangers.
This discouraged the besiegers, and towards the end of September they
suddenly decamped and vanished. “The expedition was a failure,” writes
the _Habitant de Louisbourg_, “though one might have bet
everything on its success, so small was the force that the enemy had
to resist us.”
This writer thinks that the seizure of Canseau and the attack of
Annapolis were sources of dire calamity to the French. “Perhaps,” he
says, “the English would have let us alone if we had not first
insulted them. It was the interest of the people of New England to
live at peace with us, and they would no doubt have done so, if we had
not taken it into our heads to waken them from their security. They 64
expected that both parties would merely stand on the defensive,
without taking part in this cruel war that has set Europe in a blaze.”
Whatever might otherwise have been the disposition of the
“Bastonnais,” or New England people, the attacks on Canseau and
Annapolis alarmed and exasperated them, and engendered in some heated
brains a project of wild audacity. This was no less than the capture
of Louisbourg, reputed the strongest fortress, French or British, in
North America, with the possible exception of Quebec, which owed its
chief strength to nature, and not to art.
Louisbourg was a standing menace to all the northern British colonies.
It was the only French naval station on the continent, and was such a
haunt of privateers that it was called the American Dunkirk. It
commanded the chief entrance of Canada, and threatened to ruin the
fisheries, which were nearly as vital to New England as was the
fur-trade to New France. The French government had spent twenty-five
years in fortifying it, and the cost of its powerful defences--constructed
after the system of Vauban--was reckoned at thirty million livres.
This was the fortress which William Vaughan of Damariscotta advised
Governor Shirley to attack with fifteen hundred raw New England
militia.[62] Vaughan was born at Portsmouth in 1703, and graduated at 65
Harvard College nineteen years later. His father, also a graduate of
Harvard, was for a time lieutenant-governor of New Hampshire. Soon
after leaving college, the younger Vaughan--a youth of restless and
impetuous activity--established a fishing-station on the island of
Matinicus, off the coast of Maine, and afterwards became the owner of
most of the land on both sides of the little river Damariscotta, where
he built a garrison-house, or wooden fort, established a considerable
settlement, and carried on an extensive trade in fish and timber. He
passed for a man of ability and force, but was accused of a headstrong
rashness, a self-confidence that hesitated at nothing, and a
harebrained contempt of every obstacle in his way. Once, having fitted
out a number of small vessels at Portsmouth for his fishing at
Matinicus, he named a time for sailing. It was a gusty and boisterous
March day, the sea was rough, and old sailors told him that such craft
could not carry sail. Vaughan would not listen, but went on board and
ordered his men to follow. One vessel was wrecked at the mouth of the
river; the rest, after severe buffeting, came safe, with their owner,
to Matinicus.
Being interested in the fisheries, Vaughan was doubly hostile to 66
Louisbourg,--their worst enemy. He found a willing listener in the
governor, William Shirley. Shirley was an English barrister who had
come to Massachusetts in 1731 to practise his profession and seek his
fortune. After filling various offices with credit, he was made
governor of the province in 1741, and had discharged his duties with
both tact and talent. He was able, sanguine, and a sincere well-wisher
to the province, though gnawed by an insatiable hunger for
distinction. He thought himself a born strategist, and was possessed
by a propensity for contriving military operations, which finally cost
him dear. Vaughan, who knew something of Louisbourg, told him that in
winter the snow-drifts were often banked so high against the rampart
that it could be mounted readily, if the assailants could but time
their arrival at the right moment. This was not easy, as that rocky
and tempestuous coast was often made inaccessible by fogs and surf;
Shirley therefore preferred a plan of his own contriving. But nothing
could be done without first persuading his Assembly to consent.
On the ninth of January the General Court of Massachusetts--a
convention of grave city merchants and solemn rustics from the country
villages--was astonished by a message from the governor to the effect
that he had a communication to make, so critical that he wished the
whole body to swear secrecy. The request was novel, but being then on
good terms with Shirley, the representatives consented, and took the 67
oath. Then, to their amazement, the governor invited them to undertake
forthwith the reduction of Louisbourg. The idea of an attack on that
redoubtable fortress was not new. Since the autumn, proposals had been
heard to petition the British ministry to make the attempt, under a
promise that the colonies would give their best aid. But that
Massachusetts should venture it alone, or with such doubtful help as
her neighbors might give, at her own charge and risk, though already
insolvent, without the approval or consent of the ministry, and
without experienced officers or trained soldiers, was a startling
suggestion to the sober-minded legislators of the General Court. They
listened, however, with respect to the governor’s reasons, and
appointed a committee of the two houses to consider them. The
committee deliberated for several days, and then made a report adverse
to the plan, as was also the vote of the Court.
Meanwhile, in spite of the oath, the secret had escaped. It is said
that a country member, more pious than discreet, prayed so loud and
fervently, at his lodgings, for light to guide him on the momentous
question, that his words were overheard, and the mystery of the closed
doors was revealed. The news flew through the town, and soon spread
through all the province.
After his defeat in the Assembly, Shirley returned, vexed and
disappointed, to his house in Roxbury. A few days later, James Gibson,
a Boston merchant, says that he saw him “walking slowly down King 68
Street, with his head bowed down, as if in a deep study.” “He entered
my counting-room,” pursues the merchant, “and abruptly said, ‘Gibson,
do you feel like giving up the expedition to Louisbourg?’” Gibson
replied that he wished the House would reconsider their vote. “You are
the very man I want!” exclaimed the governor.[63] They then drew up a
petition for reconsideration, which Gibson signed, promising to get
also the signatures of merchants, not only of Boston, but of Salem,
Marblehead, and other towns along the coast. In this he was completely
successful, as all New England merchants looked on Louisbourg as an
arch-enemy.
The petition was presented, and the question came again before the
Assembly. There had been much intercourse between Boston and
Louisbourg, which had largely depended on New England for
provisions.[64] The captured militiamen of Canseau, who, after some
delay, had been sent to Boston, according to the terms of surrender,
had used their opportunities to the utmost, and could give Shirley
much information concerning the fortress. It was reported that the
garrison was mutinous, and that provisions were fallen short, so that
the place could not hold out without supplies from France. These,
however, could be cut off only by blockading the harbor with a
stronger naval force than all the colonies together could supply. 69
The Assembly had before reached the reasonable conclusion that the
capture of Louisbourg was beyond the strength of Massachusetts, and
that the only course was to ask the help of the mother-country.[65]
The reports of mutiny, it was urged, could not be depended on; raw
militia in the open field were no match for disciplined troops behind
ramparts; the expense would be enormous, and the credit of the
province, already sunk low, would collapse under it; we should fail,
and instead of sympathy, get nothing but ridicule. Such were the
arguments of the opposition, to which there was little to answer,
except that if Massachusetts waited for help from England, Louisbourg
would be reinforced and the golden opportunity lost. The impetuous and
irrepressible Vaughan put forth all his energy; the plan was carried
by a single vote. And even this result was said to be due to the
accident of a member in opposition falling and breaking a leg as he
was hastening to the House.
The die was cast, and now doubt and hesitation vanished. All alike set
themselves to push on the work. Shirley wrote to all the colonies, as
far south as Pennsylvania, to ask for co-operation. All excused
themselves except Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, and
the whole burden fell on the four New England colonies. These, and
Massachusetts above all, blazed with pious zeal; for as the enterprise
was directed against Roman Catholics, it was supposed in a peculiar 70
manner to commend itself to Heaven. There were prayers without ceasing
in churches and families, and all was ardor, energy, and confidence;
while the other colonies looked on with distrust, dashed with
derision. When Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia, heard what was
afoot, he wrote to his brother in Boston, “Fortified towns are hard
nuts to crack, and your teeth are not accustomed to it; but some seem
to think that forts are as easy taken as snuff.”[66] It has been said
of Franklin that while he represented some of the New England
qualities, he had no part in that enthusiasm of which our own time saw
a crowning example when the cannon opened at Fort Sumter, and which
pushes to its end without reckoning chances, counting costs, or
heeding the scoffs of ill-wishers.
The prevailing hope and faith were, it is true, born largely of
ignorance, aided by the contagious zeal of those who first broached
the project; for as usual in such cases, a few individuals supplied
the initiate force of the enterprise. Vaughan the indefatigable rode
express to Portsmouth with a letter from Shirley to Benning Wentworth,
governor of New Hampshire. That pompous and self-important personage
admired the Massachusetts governor, who far surpassed him in talents
and acquirements, and who at the same time knew how to soothe his
vanity. Wentworth was ready to do his part, but his province had no 71
money, and the King had ordered him to permit the issue of no more
paper currency. The same prohibition had been laid upon Shirley; but
he, with sagacious forecast, had persuaded his masters to relent so
far as to permit the issue of £50,000 in what were called bills of
credit to meet any pressing exigency of war. He told this to
Wentworth, and succeeded in convincing him that his province might
stretch her credit like Massachusetts, in case of similar military
need. New Hampshire was thus enabled to raise a regiment of five
hundred men out of her scanty population, with the condition that a
hundred and fifty of them should be paid and fed by Massachusetts.[67]
Shirley was less fortunate in Rhode Island. The governor of that
little colony called Massachusetts “our avowed enemy, always trying to
defame us.”[68] There was a grudge between the neighbors, due partly
to notorious ill-treatment by the Massachusetts Puritans of Roger
Williams, founder of Rhode Island, and partly to one of those boundary
disputes which often produced ill-blood among the colonies. The
representatives of Rhode Island, forgetting past differences, voted to
raise a hundred and fifty men for the expedition, till, learning that
the project was neither ordered nor approved by the Home Government, 72
they prudently reconsidered their action. They voted, however, that
the colony sloop “Tartar,” carrying fourteen cannon and twelve
swivels, should be equipped and manned for the service, and that the
governor should be instructed to find and commission a captain and a
lieutenant to command her.[69]
Connecticut promised five hundred and sixteen men and officers, on
condition that Roger Wolcott, their commander, should have the second
rank in the expedition. Shirley accordingly commissioned him as
major-general. As Massachusetts was to supply above three thousand
men, or more than three quarters of the whole force, she had a natural
right to name a commander-in-chief.
It was not easy to choose one. The colony had been at peace for twenty
years, and except some grizzled Indian fighters of the last war, and
some survivors of the Carthagena expedition, nobody had seen service.
Few knew well what a fortress was, and nobody knew how to attack one.
Courage, energy, good sense, and popularity were the best qualities to
be hoped for in the leader. Popularity was indispensable, for the
soldiers were all to be volunteers, and they would not enlist under a
commander whom they did not like. Shirley’s choice was William
Pepperrell, a merchant of Kittery. Knowing that Benning Wentworth
thought himself the man for the place, he made an effort to placate
him, and wrote that he would gladly have given him the chief command, 73
but for his gouty legs. Wentworth took fire at the suggestion, forgot
his gout, and declared himself ready to serve his country and assume
the burden of command. The position was awkward, and Shirley was
forced to reply, “On communicating your offer to two or three
gentlemen in whose judgment I most confide, I found them clearly of
opinion that any alteration of the present command would be attended
with great risk, both with respect to our Assembly and the soldiers
being entirely disgusted.”[70]
The painter Smibert has left us a portrait of Pepperrell,--a good
bourgeois face, not without dignity, though with no suggestion of the
soldier. His spacious house at Kittery Point still stands, sound and
firm, though curtailed in some of its proportions. Not far distant is
another noted relic of colonial times, the not less spacious mansion
built by the disappointed Wentworth at Little Harbor. I write these
lines at a window of this curious old house, and before me spreads the
scene familiar to Pepperrell from childhood. Here the river Piscataqua
widens to join the sea, holding in its gaping mouth the large island
of Newcastle, with attendant groups of islets and island rocks,
battered with the rack of ages, studded with dwarf savins, or half
clad with patches of whortleberry bushes, sumach, and the shining
wax-myrtle, green in summer, red with the touch of October. The flood 74
tide pours strong and full around them, only to ebb away and lay bare
a desolation of rocks and stones buried in a shock of brown drenched
seaweed, broad tracts of glistening mud, sand-banks black with
mussel-beds, and half-submerged meadows of eel-grass, with myriads of
minute shell-fish clinging to its long lank tresses. Beyond all these
lies the main, or northern channel, more than deep enough, even when
the tide is out, to float a line-of-battle-ship. On its farther bank
stands the old house of the Pepperrells, wearing even now an air of
dingy respectability. Looking through its small, quaint window-panes,
one could see across the water the rude dwellings of fishermen along
the shore of Newcastle, and the neglected earthwork called Fort
William and Mary, that feebly guarded the river’s mouth. In front, the
Piscataqua, curving southward, widened to meet the Atlantic between
rocky headlands and foaming reefs, and in dim distance the Isles of
Shoals seemed floating on the pale gray sea.
Behind the Pepperrell house was a garden, probably more useful than
ornamental, and at the foot of it were the owner’s wharves, with
storehouses for salt-fish, naval stores, and imported goods for the
country trade.
Pepperrell was the son of a Welshman[71] who migrated in early life 75
to the Isles of Shoals, and thence to Kittery, where, by trade,
ship-building, and the fisheries, he made a fortune, most of which he
left to his son William. The young Pepperrell learned what little was
taught at the village school, supplemented by a private tutor, whose
instructions, however, did not perfect him in English grammar. In the
eyes of his self-made father, education was valuable only so far as it
could make a successful trader; and on this point he had reason to be
satisfied, as his son passed for many years as the chief merchant in
New England. He dealt in ships, timber, naval stores, fish, and
miscellaneous goods brought from England; and he also greatly
prospered by successful land purchases, becoming owner of the greater
part of the growing towns of Saco and Scarborough. When scarcely
twenty-one, he was made justice of the peace, on which he ordered from
London what his biographer calls a law library, consisting of a law
dictionary, Danvers’ “Abridgment of the Common Law,” the “Complete
Solicitor,” and several other books. In law as in war, his best
qualities were good sense and good-will. About the time when he was
made a justice, he was commissioned captain of militia, then major,
then lieutenant-colonel, and at last colonel, commanding all the
militia of Maine. The town of Kittery chose him to represent her in
the General Court, Maine being then a part of Massachusetts. Finally,
he was made a member of the Governor’s Council,--a post which he held
for thirty-two years, during eighteen of which he was president of 76
the board.
These civil dignities served him as educators better than tutor or
village school; for they brought him into close contact with the chief
men of the province; and in the Massachusetts of that time, so
different from our own, the best education and breeding were found in
the official class. At once a provincial magnate and the great man of
a small rustic village, his manners are said to have answered to both
positions,--certainly they were such as to make him popular. But
whatever he became as a man, he learned nothing to fit him to command
an army and lay siege to Louisbourg. Perhaps he felt this, and
thought, with the governor of Rhode Island, that “the attempt to
reduce that prodigiously strong town was too much for New England,
which had not one officer of experience, nor even an engineer.”[72]
Moreover, he was unwilling to leave his wife, children, and business.
He was of a religious turn of mind, and partial to the clergy, who, on
their part, held him in high favor. One of them, the famous preacher,
George Whitefield, was a guest at his house when he heard that Shirley
had appointed him to command the expedition against Louisbourg.
Whitefield had been the leading spirit in the recent religious
fermentation called the Great Awakening, which, though it produced
bitter quarrels among the ministers, besides other undesirable results, 77
was imagined by many to make for righteousness. So thought the Rev.
Thomas Prince, who mourned over the subsiding delirium of his flock as
a sign of backsliding. “The heavenly shower was over,” he sadly
exclaims; “from fighting the devil they must turn to fighting the
French.” Pepperrell, always inclined to the clergy, and now in great
perplexity and doubt, asked his guest Whitefield whether or not he had
better accept the command. Whitefield gave him cold comfort, told him
that the enterprise was not very promising, and that if he undertook
it, he must do so “with a single eye,” prepared for obloquy if he
failed, and envy if he succeeded.[73]
Henry Sherburn, commissary of the New Hampshire regiment, begged
Whitefield to furnish a motto for the flag. The preacher, who, zealot
as he was, seemed unwilling to mix himself with so madcap a business,
hesitated at first, but at length consented, and suggested the words,
_Nil desperandum Christo duce_, which, being adopted, gave the
enterprise the air of a crusade. It had, in fact, something of the
character of one. The cause was imagined to be the cause of Heaven,
crowned with celestial benediction. It had the fervent support of the
ministers, not only by prayers and sermons, but, in one case, by
counsels wholly temporal. A certain pastor, much esteemed for
benevolence, proposed to Pepperrell, who had at last accepted the
command, a plan, unknown to Vauban, for confounding the devices of 78
the enemy. He advised that two trustworthy persons should cautiously
walk together along the front of the French ramparts under cover of
night, one of them carrying a mallet, with which he was to hammer the
ground at short intervals. The French sentinels, it seems to have been
supposed, on hearing this mysterious thumping, would be so bewildered
as to give no alarm. While one of the two partners was thus employed,
the other was to lay his ear to the ground, which, as the adviser
thought, would return a hollow sound if the artful foe had dug a mine
under it; and whenever such secret danger was detected, a mark was to
be set on the spot, to warn off the soldiers.[74]
Equally zealous, after another fashion, was the Rev. Samuel Moody,
popularly known as Father Moody, or Parson Moody, minister of York and
senior chaplain of the expedition. Though about seventy years old, he
was amazingly tough and sturdy. He still lives in the traditions of
York as the spiritual despot of the settlement and the uncompromising
guardian of its manners and doctrine, predominating over it like a
rough little village pope. The comparison would have kindled his
burning wrath, for he abhorred the Holy Father as an embodied
Antichrist. Many are the stories told of him by the descendants of
those who lived under his rod, and sometimes felt its weight; for he
was known to have corrected offending parishioners with his cane.[75] 79
When some one of his flock, nettled by his strictures from the pulpit,
walked in dudgeon towards the church door, Moody would shout after
him, “Come back, you graceless sinner, come back!” or if any ventured
to the alehouse of a Saturday night, the strenuous pastor would go in
after them, collar them, drag them out, and send them home with
rousing admonition.[76] Few dared gainsay him, by reason both of his
irritable temper and of the thick-skinned insensibility that encased
him like armor of proof. And while his pachydermatous nature made him
invulnerable as a rhinoceros, he had at the same time a rough and
ready humor that supplied keen weapons for the warfare of words and
made him a formidable antagonist. This commended him to the rude
borderers, who also relished the sulphurous theology of their
spiritual dictator, just as they liked the raw and fiery liquors that
would have scorched more susceptible stomachs. What they did not like
was the pitiless length of his prayers, which sometimes kept them
afoot above two hours shivering in the polar cold of the unheated
meeting-house, and which were followed by sermons of equal endurance;
for the old man’s lungs were of brass, and his nerves of hammered
iron. Some of the sufferers ventured to remonstrate; but this only
exasperated him, till one parishioner, more worldly wise than the rest, 80
accompanied his modest petition for mercy with the gift of a barrel of
cider, after which the parson’s ministrations were perceptibly less
exhausting than before. He had an irrepressible conscience and a
highly aggressive sense of duty, which made him an intolerable meddler
in the affairs of other people, and which, joined to an underlying
kindness of heart, made him so indiscreet in his charities that his
wife and children were often driven to vain protest against the
excesses of his almsgiving. The old Puritan fanaticism was rampant in
him; and when he sailed for Louisbourg, he took with him an axe,
intended, as he said, to hew down the altars of Antichrist and
demolish his idols.[77]
Shirley’s choice of a commander was perhaps the best that could have
been made; for Pepperrell joined to an unusual popularity as little
military incompetency as anybody else who could be had. Popularity, we
have seen, was indispensable, and even company officers were appointed
with an eye to it. Many of these were well-known men in rustic
neighborhoods, who had raised companies in the hope of being
commissioned to command them. Others were militia officers recruiting
under orders of the governor. Thus, John Storer, major in the Maine
militia, raised in a single day, it is said, a company of sixty-one, 81
the eldest being sixty years old, and the youngest sixteen.[78] They
formed about a quarter of the fencible population of the town of
Wells, one of the most exposed places on the border. Volunteers
offered themselves readily everywhere; though the pay was meagre,
especially in Maine and Massachusetts, where in the new provincial
currency it was twenty-five shillings a month,--then equal to fourteen
shillings sterling, or less than sixpence a day,[79] the soldier
furnishing his own clothing and bringing his own gun. A full third of
the Massachusetts contingent, or more than a thousand men, are
reported to have come from the hardy population of Maine, whose entire
fighting force, as shown by the muster-rolls, was then but 2,855.[80]
Perhaps there was not one officer among them whose experience of war
extended beyond a drill on muster day and the sham fight that closed
the performance, when it generally happened that the rustic warriors
were treated with rum at the charge of their captain, to put them in
good humor, and so induce them to obey the word of command.
As the three provinces contributing soldiers recognized no common
authority nearer than the King, Pepperrell received three several
commissions as lieutenant-general,--one from the governor of 82
Massachusetts, and the others from the governors of Connecticut and
New Hampshire; while Wolcott, commander of the Connecticut forces, was
commissioned as major-general by both the governor of his own province
and that of Massachusetts. When the levies were complete, it was found
that Massachusetts had contributed about 3,300 men, Connecticut 516,
and New Hampshire 304 in her own pay, besides 150 paid by her
wealthier neighbor.[81] Rhode Island had lost faith and disbanded her
150 men; but afterwards raised them again, though too late to take
part in the siege.
Each of the four New England colonies had a little navy of its own,
consisting of from one to three or four small armed vessels; and as
privateering--which was sometimes a euphemism for piracy where
Frenchmen and Spaniards were concerned--was a favorite occupation, it
was possible to extemporize an additional force in case of need. For a
naval commander, Shirley chose Captain Edward Tyng, who had signalized
himself in the past summer by capturing a French privateer of greater
strength than his own. Shirley authorized him to buy for the province
the best ship he could find, equip her for fighting, and take command
of her. Tyng soon found a brig to his mind, on the stocks nearly ready
for launching. She was rapidly fitted for her new destination, 83
converted into a frigate, mounted with 24 guns, and named the
“Massachusetts.” The rest of the naval force consisted of the ship
“Cæsar,” of 20 guns; a vessel called the “Shirley,” commanded by
Captain Rous, and also carrying 20 guns; another, of the kind called a
“snow,” carrying 16 guns; one sloop of 12 guns, and two of 8 guns
each; the “Boston Packet,” of 16 guns; two sloops from Connecticut of
16 guns each; a privateer hired in Rhode Island, of 20 guns; the
government sloop “Tartar,” of the same colony, carrying 14 carriage
guns and 12 swivels; and, finally, the sloop of 14 guns which formed
the navy of New Hampshire.[82]
It was said, with apparent reason, that one or two heavy French
ships-of-war--and a number of such was expected in the spring--would
outmatch the whole colonial squadron, and, after mastering it, would
hold all the transports at mercy; so that the troops on shore, having
no means of return and no hope of succor, would be forced to surrender
or starve. The danger was real and serious, and Shirley felt the
necessity of help from a few British ships-of-war. Commodore Peter
Warren was then with a small squadron at Antigua. Shirley sent an
express boat to him with a letter stating the situation and asking his
aid. Warren, who had married an American woman and who owned large
tracts of land on the Mohawk, was known to be a warm friend to the 84
provinces. It is clear that he would gladly have complied with
Shirley’s request; but when he laid the question before a council of
officers, they were of one mind that without orders from the Admiralty
he would not be justified in supporting an attempt made without the
approval of the King.[83] He therefore saw no choice but to decline.
Shirley, fearing that his refusal would be too discouraging, kept it
secret from all but Pepperrell and General Wolcott, or, as others say,
Brigadier Waldo. He had written to the Duke of Newcastle in the
preceding autumn that Acadia and the fisheries were in great danger,
and that ships-of-war were needed for their protection. On this, the
duke had written to Warren, ordering him to sail for Boston and
concert measures with Shirley “for the annoyance of the enemy, and his
Majesty’s service in North America.”[84] Newcastle’s letter reached
Warren only two or three days after he had sent back his refusal of
Shirley’s request. Thinking himself now sufficiently authorized to
give the desired aid, he made all sail for Boston with his three
ships, the “Superbe,” “Mermaid,” and “Launceston.” On the way he met a
schooner from Boston, and learned from its officers that the
expedition had already sailed; on which, detaining the master as a
pilot, he changed his course and made directly for Canseau,--the place
of rendezvous of the expedition,--and at the same time sent orders by 85
the schooner that any king’s ships that might arrive at Boston should
immediately join him.
Within seven weeks after Shirley issued his proclamation for
volunteers, the preparations were all made, and the unique armament
was afloat. Transports, such as they were, could be had in abundance;
for the harbors of Salem and Marblehead were full of fishing-vessels
thrown out of employment by the war. These were hired and insured by
the province for the security of the owners. There was a great dearth
of cannon. The few that could be had were too light, the heaviest
being of twenty-two-pound calibre. New York lent ten eighteen-pounders
to the expedition. But the adventurers looked to the French for their
chief supply. A detached work near Louisbourg, called the Grand, or
Royal, Battery, was known to be armed with thirty heavy pieces; and
these it was proposed to capture and turn against the town,--which, as
Hutchinson remarks, was “like selling the skin of the bear before
catching him.”
It was clear that the expedition must run for luck against risks of
all kinds. Those whose hopes were highest, based them on a belief in
the special and direct interposition of Providence; others were
sanguine through ignorance and provincial self-conceit. As soon as the
troops were embarked, Shirley wrote to the ministers of what was going
on, telling them that, accidents apart, four thousand New England men
would land on Cape Breton in April, and that, even should they fail to 86
capture Louisbourg, he would answer for it that they would lay the
town in ruins, retake Canseau, do other good service to his Majesty,
and then come safe home.[85] On receiving this communication, the
government resolved to aid the enterprise if there should yet be time,
and accordingly ordered several ships-of-war to sail for Louisbourg.
The sarcastic Dr. Douglas, then living at Boston, writes that the
expedition had a lawyer for contriver, a merchant for general, and
farmers, fishermen, and mechanics for soldiers. In fact, it had
something of the character of broad farce, to which Shirley himself,
with all his ability and general good sense, was a chief contributor.
He wrote to the Duke of Newcastle that though the officers had no
experience and the men no discipline, he would take care to provide
against these defects,--meaning that he would give exact directions
how to take Louisbourg. Accordingly, he drew up copious instructions
to that effect. These seem to have undergone a process of evolution,
for several distinct drafts of them are preserved.[86] The complete 87
and final one is among the Pepperrell Papers, copied entire in the
neat, commercial hand of the general himself.[87] It seems to assume
that Providence would work a continued miracle, and on every occasion
supply the expedition with weather precisely suited to its wants. “It
is thought,” says this singular document, “that Louisbourg may be
surprised if they [the French] have no advice of your coming. To
effect it you must time your arrival about nine of the clock in the
evening, taking care that the fleet be far enough in the offing to
prevent their being seen from the town in the daytime.” He then goes
on to prescribe how the troops are to land, after dark, at a place
called Flat Point Cove, in four divisions, three of which are to march
to the back of certain hills a mile and a half west of the town, where
two of the three “are to halt and keep a profound silence;” the third
continuing its march “under cover of the said hills,” till it comes
opposite the Grand Battery, which it will attack at a concerted
signal; while one of the two divisions behind the hills assaults the
west gate, and the other moves up to support the attack.
While this is going on, the soldiers of the fourth division are to 88
march with all speed along the shore till they come to a certain part
of the town wall, which they are to scale; then proceed “as fast as
can be” to the citadel and “secure the windows of the governor’s
apartments.” After this follow page after page of complicated details
which must have stricken the general with stupefaction. The rocks,
surf, fogs, and gales of that tempestuous coast are all left out of
the account; and so, too, is the nature of the country, which consists
of deep marshes, rocky hills, and hollows choked with evergreen
thickets. Yet a series of complex and mutually dependent operations,
involving long marches through this rugged and pathless region, was to
be accomplished, in the darkness of one April night, by raw soldiers
who knew nothing of the country. This rare specimen of amateur
soldiering is redeemed in some measure by a postscript in which the
governor sets free the hands of the general, thus: “Notwithstanding
the instructions you have received from me, I must leave you to act,
upon unforeseen emergencies, according to your best discretion.”
On the twenty-fourth of March, the fleet, consisting of about ninety
transports, escorted by the provincial cruisers, sailed from Nantasket
Roads, followed by prayers and benedictions, and also by toasts drunk
with cheers, in bumpers of rum punch.[88]
[58] _Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg contenant une Relation
exacte et circonstanciée de la Prise de l’Isle Royale par les
Anglois._
[59] _Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg._
[60] _Mascarene to the Besiegers, 3 July, 1744._ Duquesnel had
written to all the missionaries “d’engager les sauvages à faire
quelque coup important sur le fort” (Annapolis). _Duquesnel à
Beauharnois, 1 Juin, 1744._
[61] _Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg._
[62] Smollett says that the proposal came from Robert Auchmuty,
judge of admiralty in Massachusetts. Hutchinson, Douglas,
Belknap, and other well-informed writers ascribe the scheme
to Vaughan, while Pepperrell says that it originated with
Colonel John Bradstreet. In the Public Record Office there
is a letter from Bradstreet, written in 1753, but without
address, in which he declares that he not only planned the
siege, but “was the Principal Person in conducting
it,”--assertions which may pass for what they are worth,
Bradstreet being much given to self-assertion.
[63] Gibson, _Journal of the Siege of Louisbourg_.
[64] _Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg._
[65] _Report of Council, 12 January, 1745._
[66] Sparks, _Works of Franklin_, vii. 16.
[67] Correspondence of Shirley and Wentworth, in _Belknap
Papers. Provincial Papers of New Hampshire_, v.
[68] _Governor Wanton to the Agent of Rhode Island,
20 December, 1745_, in _Colony Records of Rhode Island_, v.
[69] _Colony Records of Rhode Island_, v. (_February, 1745_).
[70] _Shirley to Wentworth, 16 February, 1745._
[71] “A native of Ravistock Parish, in Wales.” Parsons,
_Life of Pepperrell_. Mrs. Adelaide Cilley Waldron, a
descendant of Pepperrell, assures me, however, that his
father, the emigrant, came, not from Wales, but from
Devonshire.
[72] _Governor Wanton to the Agent of Rhode Island
in London, 20 December, 1745._
[73] Parsons, _Life of Pepperrell_, 51.
[74] Belknap, _Hist. New Hampshire_, ii. 208.
[75] Tradition told me at York by Mr. N. Marshall.
[76] Lecture of Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted by Cabot, _Memoir
of Emerson_, i. 10.
[77] Moody found sympathizers in his iconoclastic zeal.
Deacon John Gray of Biddeford wrote to Pepperrell: “Oh that
I could be with you and dear Parson Moody in that church [at
Louisbourg] to destroy the images there set up, and hear the
true Gospel of our Lord and Saviour there preached!”
[78] Bourne, _Hist. of Wells and Kennebunk_, 371.
[79] Gibson, _Journal; Records of Rhode Island_, v. Governor
Wanton of that province says, with complacency, that the pay
of Rhode Island was twice that of Massachusetts.
[80] Parsons, _Life of Pepperrell_, 54.
[81] Of the Massachusetts contingent, three hundred men were
raised and maintained at the charge of the merchant James
Gibson.
[82] The list is given by Williamson, ii. 227.
[83] _Memoirs of the Principal Transactions of the Last War_, 44.
[84] _Ibid._, 46. _Letters of Shirley_ (Public Record Office).
[85] _Shirley to Newcastle, 24 March, 1745._ The ministry was
not wholly unprepared for this announcement, as Shirley had
before reported to it the vote of his Assembly consenting to
the expedition. _Shirley to Newcastle, 1 February,
1745._
[86] The first draft of Shirley’s instructions for taking
Louisbourg is in the large manuscript volume entitled _Siege
of Louisbourg_, in the library of the Massachusetts
Historical Society. The document is called _Mem^o for the
attaching of Louisbourg this Spring by Surprise_. After
giving minute instructions for every movement, it goes on to
say that, as the surprise may possibly fail, it will be
necessary to send two small mortars and twelve cannon
carrying nine-pound balls, “so as to bombard them and
endeavour to make Breaches in their walls and then to Storm
them.” Shirley was soon to discover the absurdity of trying
to breach the walls of Louisbourg with nine-pounders.
[87] It is printed in the first volume of the _Collections of
the Massachusetts Historical Society_. Shirley was so well
pleased with it that he sent it to the Duke of Newcastle
enclosed in his letter of 1 February, 1745 (Public Record
Office).
[88] The following letter from John Payne of Boston to Colonel
prevailing religious feeling, illustrates the ardor of the 89
New England people towards their rash adventure:--
BOSTON, Apr. 24, 1745.
Sir,--I hope this will find you at Louisbourg with a Bowl
of Punch a Pipe and a P--k of C--ds in your hand and
whatever else you desire (I had forgot to mention a Pretty
French Madammoselle). We are very Impatiently expecting to
hear from you, 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 would not 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 Briton, you must
be in Possession of it now, for it’s a standing Toast. I
think the least thing you Military Gent^n can do is to
send us some arrack when you take ye Place to celebrate
your Victory and not to force us to do it in Rum Punch or
Luke’s bad wine or sour cyder.
To Collonell Robert Hale
at (or near) Louisbourg.
I am indebted for a copy of this curious letter to Robert
Hale Bancroft, Esq., a descendant of Colonel Hale.