1745.
LOUISBOURG TAKEN.
A RASH RESOLUTION.--THE ISLAND BATTERY.--THE VOLUNTEERS.--THE
ATTACK.--THE REPULSE.--CAPTURE OF THE “VIGILANT.”--A
SORTIE.--SKIRMISHES.--DESPONDENCY OF THE FRENCH.--ENGLISH CAMP
THREATENED.--PEPPERRELL AND WARREN.--WARREN’S PLAN.--PREPARATION
FOR A GENERAL ATTACK.--FLAG OF TRUCE.--CAPITULATION.--STATE OF THE
FORTRESS.--PARSON MOODY.--SOLDIERS DISSATISFIED.--DISORDERS.--ARMY
AND NAVY.--REJOICINGS.--ENGLAND REPAYS PROVINCIAL OUTLAYS.
Frequent councils of war were held in solemn form at headquarters. On
the seventh of May a summons to surrender was sent to Duchambon, who
replied that he would answer with his cannon. Two days after, we find
in the record of the council the following startling entry: “Advised
unanimously that the Town of Louisbourg be attacked by storm this
Night.” Vaughan was a member of the board, and perhaps his impetuous
rashness had turned the heads of his colleagues. To storm the fortress
at that time would have been a desperate attempt for the best-trained
and best-led troops. There was as yet no breach in the walls, nor the
beginning of one; and the French were so confident in the strength of
their fortifications that they boasted that women alone could defend 118
them. Nine in ten of the men had no bayonets,[121] many had no shoes,
and it is said that the scaling-ladders they had brought from Boston
were ten feet too short.[122] Perhaps it was unfortunate for the
French that the army was more prudent than its leaders; and another
council being called on the same day, it was “Advised, That, inasmuch
as there appears a great Dissatisfaction in many of the officers and
Soldiers at the designed attack of the Town by Storm this Night, the
said Attack be deferred for the present.”[123]
Another plan was adopted, hardly less critical, though it found favor
with the army. This was the assault of the Island Battery, which
closed the entrance of the harbor to the British squadron, and kept it
open to ships from France. Nobody knew precisely how to find the two
landing-places of this formidable work, which were narrow gaps between
rocks lashed with almost constant surf; but Vaughan would see no
difficulties, and wrote to Pepperrell that if he would give him the
command and leave him to manage the attack in his own way, he would
engage to send the French flag to headquarters within forty-eight
hours.[124] On the next day he seems to have thought the command
assured to him, and writes from the Grand Battery that the carpenters
are at work mending whale-boats and making paddles, asking at the same 119
time for plenty of pistols and one hundred hand-grenades, with men who
know how to use them.[125] The weather proved bad, and the attempt was
deferred. This happened several times, till Warren grew impatient, and
offered to support the attack with two hundred sailors.
At length, on the twenty-third, the volunteers for the perilous
enterprise mustered at the Grand Battery, whence the boats were to set
out. Brigadier Waldo, who still commanded there, saw them with concern
and anxiety, as they came dropping in, in small squads, without
officers, noisy, disorderly, and, in some cases, more or less drunk.
“I doubt,” he told the general, “whether straggling fellows, three,
four, or seven out of a company, ought to go on such a service.”[126]
A bright moon and northern lights again put off the attack. The
volunteers remained at the Grand Battery, waiting for better luck.
“They seem to be impatient for action,” writes Waldo. “If there were a
more regular appearance, it would give me greater sattysfaction.”[127]
On the twenty-sixth their wish for action was fully gratified. The
night was still and dark, and the boats put out from the battery
towards twelve o’clock, with about three hundred men on board.[128]
These were to be joined by a hundred or a hundred and fifty more from 120
Gorham’s regiment, then stationed at Lighthouse Point. The commander
was not Vaughan, but one Brooks,--the choice of the men themselves, as
were also his subordinates.[129] They moved slowly, the boats being
propelled, not by oars, but by paddles, which, if skilfully used,
would make no noise. The wind presently rose; and when they found a
landing-place, the surf was lashing the rocks with even more than
usual fury. There was room for but three boats at once between the
breakers on each hand. They pushed in, and the men scrambled ashore
with what speed they might.
The Island Battery was a strong work, walled in on all sides,
garrisoned by a hundred and eighty men, and armed with thirty cannon,
seven swivels, and two mortars.[130] It was now a little after
midnight. Captain d’Aillebout, the commandant, was on the watch,
pacing the battery platform; but he seems to have seen nothing unusual
till about a hundred and fifty men had got on shore, when they had
the folly to announce their presence by three cheers. Then, in the 121
words of General Wolcott, the battery “blazed with cannon, swivels,
and small-arms.” The crowd of boats, dimly visible through the
darkness, as they lay just off the landing, waiting their turn to go
in, were at once the target for volleys of grape-shot, langrage-shot,
and musket-balls, of which the men on shore had also their share.
These succeeded, however, in planting twelve scaling-ladders against
the wall.[131] It is said that some of them climbed into the place,
and the improbable story is told that Brooks, their commander, was
hauling down the French flag when a Swiss grenadier cut him down with
a cutlass.[132] Many of the boats were shattered or sunk, while those
in the rear, seeing the state of things, appear to have sheered off.
The affair was soon reduced to an exchange of shots between the
garrison and the men who had landed, and who, standing on the open
ground without the walls, were not wholly invisible, while the French,
behind their ramparts, were completely hidden. “The fire of the
English,” says Bigot, “was extremely obstinate, but without effect, as
they could not see to take aim.” They kept it up till daybreak, or
about two hours and a half; and then, seeing themselves at the mercy
of the French, surrendered to the number of one hundred and nineteen, 122
including the wounded, three or more of whom died almost immediately.
By the most trustworthy accounts the English loss in killed, drowned,
and captured was one hundred and eighty-nine; or, in the words of
Pepperrell, “nearly half our party.”[133] Disorder, precipitation, and
weak leadership ruined what hopes the attempt ever had.
As this was the only French success during the siege, Duchambon makes
the most of it. He reports that the battery was attacked by a thousand
men, supported by eight hundred more, who were afraid to show
themselves; and, farther, that there were thirty-five boats, all of
which were destroyed or sunk,[134]--though he afterwards says that two
of them got away with thirty men, being all that were left of the
thousand. Bigot, more moderate, puts the number of assailants at five
hundred, of whom he says that all perished, except the one hundred and
nineteen who were captured.[135]
At daybreak Louisbourg rang with shouts of triumph. It was plain that
a disorderly militia could not capture the Island Battery. Yet
captured or silenced it must be; and orders were given to plant a
battery against it at Lighthouse Point, on the eastern side of the 123
harbor’s mouth, at the distance of a short half-mile. The neighboring
shore was rocky and almost inaccessible. Cannon and mortars were
carried in boats to the nearest landing-place, hauled up a steep
cliff, and dragged a mile and a quarter to the chosen spot, where they
were planted under the orders of Colonel Gridley, who thirty years
after directed the earthworks on Bunker Hill. The new battery soon
opened fire with deadly effect.
The French, much encouraged by their late success, were plunged again
into despondency by a disaster which had happened a week before the
affair of the Island Battery, but did not come to their knowledge till
some time after. On the nineteenth of May a fierce cannonade was heard
from the harbor, and a large French ship-of-war was seen hotly engaged
with several vessels of the squadron. She was the “Vigilant,” carrying
64 guns and 560 men, and commanded by the Marquis de la Maisonfort.
She had come from France with munitions and stores, when on
approaching Louisbourg she met one of the English cruisers,--some say
the “Mermaid,” of 40 guns, and others the “Shirley,” of 20. Being no
match for her, the British or provincial frigate kept up a running
fight and led her towards the English fleet. The “Vigilant” soon found
herself beset by several other vessels, and after a gallant resistance
and the loss of eighty men, struck her colors. Nothing could be more
timely for the New England army, whose ammunition and provisions had 124
sunk perilously low. The French prize now supplied their needs, and
drew from the _Habitant de Louisbourg_ the mournful comment, “We
were victims devoted to appease the wrath of Heaven, which turned our
own arms into weapons for our enemies.”
Nor was this the last time when the defenders of Louisbourg supplied
the instruments of their own destruction; for ten cannon were
presently unearthed at low tide from the flats near the careening
wharf in the northeast arm of the harbor, where they had been hidden
by the French some time before. Most of them proved sound; and being
mounted at Lighthouse Point, they were turned against their late
owners at the Island Battery.
When Gorham’s regiment first took post at Lighthouse Point, Duchambon
thought the movement so threatening that he forgot his former doubts,
and ordered a sortie against it, under the Sieur de Beaubassin.
Beaubassin landed, with a hundred men, at a place called Lorembec, and
advanced to surprise the English detachment; but was discovered by an
outpost of forty men, who attacked and routed his party.[136] Being
then joined by eighty Indians, Beaubassin had several other skirmishes
with English scouting-parties, till, pushed by superior numbers, and
their leader severely wounded, his men regained Louisbourg by sea,
escaping with difficulty from the guard-boats of the squadron. The 125
Sieur de la Vallière, with a considerable party of men, tried to burn
Pepperrell’s storehouses, near Flat Point Cove; but ten or twelve of
his followers were captured, and nearly all the rest wounded. Various
other petty encounters took place between English scouting-parties and
roving bands of French and Indians, always ending, according to
Pepperrell, in the discomfiture of the latter. To this, however, there
was at least one exception. Twenty English were waylaid and surrounded
near Petit Lorembec by forty or fifty Indians, accompanied by two or
three Frenchmen. Most of the English were shot down, several escaped,
and the rest surrendered on promise of life; upon which the Indians,
in cold blood, shot or speared some of them, and atrociously tortured
others.
This suggested to Warren a device which had two objects,--to prevent
such outrages in future, and to make known to the French that the ship
“Vigilant,” the mainstay of their hopes, was in English hands. The
treatment of the captives was told to the Marquis de la Maisonfort,
late captain of the “Vigilant,” now a prisoner on board the ship he
had commanded, and he was requested to lay the facts before Duchambon.
This he did with great readiness, in a letter containing these words:
“It is well that you should be informed that the captains and officers
of this squadron treat us, not as their prisoners, but as their good
friends, and take particular pains that my officers and crew should
want for nothing; therefore it seems to me just to treat them in 126
like manner, and to punish those who do otherwise and offer any insult
to the prisoners who may fall into your hands.”
Captain M’Donald, of the marines, carried this letter to Duchambon
under a flag-of-truce. Though familiar with the French language, he
spoke to the governor through an interpreter, so that the French
officers present, who hitherto had only known that a large ship had
been taken, expressed to each other without reserve their
discouragement and dismay when they learned that the prize was no
other than the “Vigilant.” Duchambon replied to La Maisonfort’s letter
that the Indians alone were answerable for the cruelties in question,
and that he would forbid such conduct for the future.[137]
The besiegers were now threatened by a new danger. We have seen that
in the last summer the Sieur Duvivier had attacked Annapolis.
Undaunted by ill-luck, he had gone to France to beg for help to attack
it again; two thousand men were promised him, and in anticipation of
their arrival the governor of Canada sent a body of French and
Indians, under the noted partisan Marin, to meet and co-operate with
them. Marin was ordered to wait at Les Mines till he heard of the
arrival of the troops from France; but he grew impatient, and resolved
to attack Annapolis without them. Accordingly, he laid siege to it
with the six or seven hundred whites and Indians of his party, aided 127
by the so-called Acadian neutrals. Mascarene, the governor, kept them
at bay till the twenty-fourth of May, when, to his surprise, they all
disappeared. Duchambon had sent them an order to make all haste to the
aid of Louisbourg. As the report of this reached the besiegers,
multiplying Marin’s force fourfold, they expected to be attacked by
numbers more than equal to those of their own effective men. This
wrought a wholesome reform. Order was established in the camp, which
was now fenced with palisades and watched by sentinels and
scouting-parties.
Another tribulation fell upon the general. Shirley had enjoined it
upon him to keep in perfect harmony with the naval commander, and the
injunction was in accord with Pepperrell’s conciliating temper. Warren
was no less earnest than he for the success of the enterprise, lent
him ammunition in time of need, and offered every aid in his power,
while Pepperrell in letters to Shirley and Newcastle praised his
colleague without stint. But in habits and character the two men
differed widely. Warren was in the prime of life, and the ardor of
youth still burned in him. He was impatient at the slow movement of
the siege. Prisoners told him of a squadron expected from Brest, of
which the “Vigilant” was the forerunner; and he feared that even if it
could not defeat him, it might elude the blockade, and with the help
of the continual fogs, get into Louisbourg in spite of him, thus
making its capture impossible. Therefore he called a council of his 128
captains on board his flagship, the “Superbe,” and proposed a plan for
taking the place without further delay. On the same day he laid it
before Pepperrell. It was to the effect that all the King’s ships and
provincial cruisers should enter the harbor, after taking on board
sixteen hundred of Pepperrell’s men, and attack the town from the
water side, while what was left of the army should assault it by
land.[138] To accept the proposal would have been to pass over the
command to Warren, only about twenty-one hundred of the New England
men being fit for service at the time, while of these the general
informs Warren that “six hundred are gone in quest of two bodies of
French and Indians, who, we are informed, are gathering, one to the
eastward, and the other to the westward.”[139]
To this Warren replies, with some appearance of pique, “I am very
sorry that no one plan of mine, though approved by all my captains,
has been so fortunate as to meet your approbation or have any weight
with you.” And to show his title to consideration, he gives an extract
from a letter written to him by Shirley, in which that inveterate
flatterer hints his regret that, by reason of other employments,
Warren could not take command of the whole expedition,--“which I
doubt not,” says the governor, “would be a most happy event for his 129
Majesty’s service.”[140]
Pepperrell kept his temper under this thrust, and wrote to the
commodore with invincible courtesy: “Am extremely sorry the fogs
prevent me from the pleasure of waiting on you on board your ship,”
adding that six hundred men should be furnished from the army and the
transports to man the “Vigilant,” which was now the most powerful ship
in the squadron. In short, he showed every disposition to meet Warren
halfway. But the commodore was beginning to feel some doubts as to the
expediency of the bold action he had proposed, and informed Pepperrell
that his pilots thought it impossible to go into the harbor until the
Island Battery was silenced. In fact, there was danger that if the
ships got in while that battery was still alive and active, they would
never get out again, but be kept there as in a trap, under the fire
from the town ramparts.
Gridley’s artillery at Lighthouse Point had been doing its best,
dropping bombshells with such precision into the Island Battery that
the French soldiers were sometimes seen running into the sea to escape
the explosions. Many of the Island guns were dismounted, and the place
was fast becoming untenable. At the same time the English batteries on
the land side were pushing their work of destruction with relentless
industry, and walls and bastions crumbled under their fire. The French
labored with energy under cover of night to repair the mischief; 130
closed the shattered West Gate with a wall of stone and earth twenty
feet thick, made an epaulement to protect what was left of the
formidable Circular Battery,--all but three of whose sixteen guns had
been dismounted,--stopped the throat of the Dauphin’s Bastion with a
barricade of stone, and built a cavalier, or raised battery, on the
King’s Bastion,--where, however, the English fire soon ruined it.
Against that near and peculiarly dangerous neighbor, the advanced
battery, or, as they called it, the _Batterie de Francœur_, they
planted three heavy cannon to take it in flank. “These,” says
Duchambon, “produced a marvellous effect, dismounted one of the cannon
of the Bastonnais, and damaged all their embrasures,--which,”
concludes the governor, “did not prevent them from keeping up a
constant fire; and they repaired by night the mischief we did them by
day.”[141]
Pepperrell and Warren at length came to an understanding as to a joint
attack by land and water. The Island Battery was by this time
crippled, and the town batteries that commanded the interior of the
harbor were nearly destroyed. It was agreed that Warren, whose
squadron was now increased by recent arrivals to eleven ships, besides
the provincial cruisers, should enter the harbor with the first fair
wind, cannonade the town and attack it in boats, while Pepperrell
stormed it from the land side. Warren was to hoist a Dutch flag under 131
his pennant, at his main-top-gallant mast-head, as a signal that he
was about to sail in; and Pepperrell was to answer by three columns of
smoke, marching at the same time towards the walls with drums beating
and colors flying.[142]
The French saw with dismay a large quantity of fascines carried to the
foot of the glacis, ready to fill the ditch, and their scouts came in
with reports that more than a thousand scaling-ladders were lying
behind the ridge of the nearest hill. Toil, loss of sleep, and the
stifling air of the casemates, in which they were forced to take
refuge, had sapped the strength of the besieged. The town was a ruin;
only one house was untouched by shot or shell. “We could have borne
all this,” writes the intendant Bigot; “but the scarcity of powder,
the loss of the ‘Vigilant,’ the presence of the squadron, and the
absence of any news from Marin, who had been ordered to join us with
his Canadians and Indians, spread terror among troops and inhabitants.
The townspeople said that they did not want to be put to the sword,
and were not strong enough to resist a general assault.”[143] On the
fifteenth of June they brought a petition to Duchambon, begging him to
capitulate.[144]
On that day Captain Sherburn, at the advanced battery, wrote in his 132
diary: “By 12 o’clock we had got all our platforms laid, embrazures
mended, guns in order, shot in place, cartridges ready, dined, gunners
quartered, matches lighted to return their last favours, when we heard
their drums beat a parley; and soon appeared a flag of truce, which I
received midway between our battery and their walls, conducted the
officer to Green Hill, and delivered him to Colonel Richman
[Richmond].”
La Perelle, the French officer, delivered a note from Duchambon,
directed to both Pepperrell and Warren, and asking for a suspension of
arms to enable him to draw up proposals for capitulation.[145] Warren
chanced to be on shore when the note came; and the two commanders
answered jointly that it had come in good time, as they had just
resolved on a general attack, and that they would give the governor
till eight o’clock of the next morning to make his proposals.[146]
They came in due time, but were of such a nature that Pepperrell
refused to listen to them, and sent back Bonaventure, the officer who
brought them, with counter-proposals. These were the terms which
Duchambon had rejected on the seventh of May, with added conditions;
as, among others, that no officer, soldier, or inhabitant of
Louisbourg should bear arms against the King of England or any of his
allies for the space of a year. Duchambon stipulated, as the condition 133
of his acceptance, that his troops should march out of the fortress
with their arms and colors.[147] To this both the English commanders
consented, Warren observing to Pepperrell “the uncertainty of our
affairs, that depend so much on wind and weather, makes it necessary
not to stickle at trifles.”[148] The articles were signed on both
sides, and on the seventeenth the ships sailed peacefully into the
harbor, while Pepperrell with a part of his ragged army entered the
south gate of the town. “Never was a place more mal’d [mauled] with
cannon and shells,” he writes to Shirley; “neither have I red in
History of any troops behaving with greater courage. We gave them
about nine thousand cannon-balls and six hundred bombs.”[149] Thus
this unique military performance ended in complete and astonishing
success.
According to English accounts, the French had lost about three hundred
men during the siege; but their real loss seems to have been not much
above a third of that number. On the side of the besiegers, the deaths
from all causes were only a hundred and thirty, about thirty of which
were from disease. The French used their muskets to good purpose; but
their mortar practice was bad, and close as was the advanced battery
to their walls, they often failed to hit it, while the ground on both
sides of it looked like a ploughed field, from the bursting of their 134
shells. Their surrender was largely determined by want of ammunition,
as, according to one account, the French had but thirty-seven barrels
of gunpowder left,[150]--in which particular the besiegers fared
little better.[151]
The New England men had been full of confidence in the result of the
proposed assault, and a French writer says that the timely
capitulation saved Louisbourg from a terrible catastrophe;[152] yet,
ill-armed and disorderly as the besiegers were, it may be doubted
whether the quiet ending of the siege was not as fortunate for them as
for their foes. The discouragement of the French was increased by
greatly exaggerated ideas of the force of the “Bastonnais.” The
_Habitant de Louisbourg_ places the land-force alone at eight or
nine thousand men, and Duchambon reports to the minister D’Argenson
that he was attacked in all by thirteen thousand. His mortifying
position was a sharp temptation to exaggerate; but his conduct can
only be explained by a belief that the force of his enemy was far
greater than it was in fact.
Warren thought that the proposed assault would succeed, and wrote to
Pepperrell that he hoped they would “soon keep a good house together, 135
and give the Ladys of Louisbourg a Gallant Ball.”[153] During his
visit to the camp on the day when the flag of truce came out, he made
a speech to the New England soldiers, exhorting them to behave like
true Englishmen; at which they cheered lustily. Making a visit to the
Grand Battery on the same day, he won high favor with the regiment
stationed there by the gift of a hogshead of rum to drink his health.
Whether Warren’s “gallant ball” ever took place in Louisbourg does not
clearly appear. Pepperrell, on his part, celebrated the victory by a
dinner to the commodore and his officers. As the redoubtable Parson
Moody was the general’s chaplain and the oldest man in the army, he
expected to ask a blessing at the board, and was, in fact, invited to
do so,--to the great concern of those who knew his habitual prolixity,
and dreaded its effect on the guests. At the same time, not one of
them dared rasp his irritable temper by any suggestion of brevity; and
hence they came in terror to the feast, expecting an invocation of a
good half-hour, ended by open revolt of the hungry Britons; when, to
their surprise and relief, Moody said: “Good Lord, we have so much to
thank thee for, that time will be too short, and we must leave it for
eternity. Bless our food and fellowship upon this joyful occasion, for
the sake of Christ our Lord, Amen.” And with that he sat down.[154]
It is said that he had been seen in the French church hewing at the 136
altar and images with the axe that he had brought for that purpose;
and perhaps this iconoclastic performance had eased the high pressure
of his zeal.[155]
Amazing as their triumph was, Pepperrell’s soldiers were not satisfied
with the capitulation, and one of them utters his disapproval in his
diary thus: “Sabbath Day, ye 16^{th} June. They came to Termes for us
to enter ye Sitty to morrow, and Poore Termes they Bee too.”
The occasion of discontent was the security of property assured to the
inhabitants, “by which means,” says that dull chronicler, Niles, “the
poor soldiers lost all their hopes and just demerit [desert] of
plunder promised them.” In the meagreness of their pay they thought
themselves entitled to the plunder of Louisbourg, which they imagined
to be a seat of wealth and luxury. Nathaniel Sparhawk, Pepperrell’s
thrifty son-in-law, shared this illusion, and begged the general to
get for him (at a low price) a handsome service of silver plate. When
the volunteers exchanged their wet and dreary camp for what they
expected to be the comfortable quarters of the town, they were
disgusted to see the houses still occupied by the owners, and to find
themselves forced to stand guard at the doors, to protect them.[156]
“A great Noys and hubbub a mongst ye Solders a bout ye Plunder; Som 137
Cursing, som a Swarein,” writes one of the disgusted victors.
They were not, and perhaps could not be, long kept in order; and when,
in accordance with the capitulation, the inhabitants had been sent on
board vessels for transportation to France, discipline gave way, and
General Wolcott records that, while Moody was preaching on a Sunday in
the garrison-chapel, there was “excessive stealing in every part of
the town.” Little, however, was left to steal.
But if the army found but meagre gleanings, the navy reaped a rich
harvest. French ships, instead of being barred out of the harbor, were
now lured to enter it. The French flag was kept flying over the town,
and in this way prizes were entrapped to the estimated value of a
million sterling, half of which went to the Crown, and the rest to the
British officers and crews, the army getting no share whatever.
Now rose the vexed question of the relative part borne by the colonies
and the Crown, the army and the navy, in the capture of Louisbourg;
and here it may be well to observe the impressions of a French witness
of the siege. “It was an enterprise less of the English nation and its
King than of the inhabitants of New England alone. This singular
people have their own laws and administration, and their governor 138
plays the sovereign. Admiral [Commodore] Warren had no authority over
the troops sent by the Governor of Boston, and he was only a
spectator.... Nobody would have said that their sea and land forces
were of the same nation and under the same prince. No nation but the
English is capable of such eccentricities (_bizarreries_),--which,
nevertheless, are a part of the precious liberty of which they show
themselves so jealous.”[157]
The French writer is correct when he says that the land and sea forces
were under separate commands, and it is equally true that but for the
conciliating temper of Pepperrell, harmony could not have been
preserved between the two chiefs; but when he calls Warren a mere
spectator, he does glaring injustice to that gallant officer, whose
activity and that of his captains was incessant, and whose services
were invaluable. They maintained, with slight lapses, an almost
impossible blockade, without which the siege must have failed. Two or
three small vessels got into the harbor; but the capture of the
“Vigilant,” more than any other event of the siege, discouraged the
French and prepared them for surrender.
Several English writers speak of Warren and the navy as the captors of
Louisbourg, and all New England writers give the chief honor to
Pepperrell and the army. Neither army nor navy would have been 139
successful without the other. Warren and his officers, in a council of
war, had determined that so long as the Island Battery and the water
batteries of the town remained in an efficient state, the ships could
not enter the harbor; and Warren had personally expressed the same
opinion.[158] He did not mean to enter till all the batteries which
had made the attempt impracticable, including the Circular Battery,
which was the most formidable of all, had been silenced or crippled by
the army, and by the army alone. The whole work of the siege fell upon
the land forces; and though it had been proposed to send a body of
marines on shore, this was not done.[159] Three or four gunners, “to
put your men in the way of loading cannon,”[160] was Warren’s
contribution to the operations of the siege; though the fear of attack
by the ships, jointly with the land force, no doubt hastened the 140
surrender. Beauharnois, governor of Canada, ascribes the defeat to the
extreme activity with which the New England men pushed their attacks.
The _Habitant de Louisbourg_ says that each of the two commanders
was eager that the keys of the fortress should be delivered to him,
and not to his colleague; that before the surrender, Warren sent an
officer to persuade the French that it would be for their advantage to
make their submission to him rather than to Pepperrell; and that it
was in fact so made. Wolcott, on the other hand, with the best means
of learning the truth, says in his diary that Pepperrell received the
keys at the South Gate. The report that it was the British commodore,
and not their own general, to whom Louisbourg surrendered, made a
prodigious stir among the inhabitants of New England, who had the
touchiness common to small and ambitious peoples; and as they had
begun the enterprise and borne most of its burdens and dangers, they
thought themselves entitled to the chief credit of it. Pepperrell was
blamed as lukewarm for the honor of his country because he did not
demand the keys and reject the capitulation if they were refused.
After all this ebullition it appeared that the keys were in his hands,
for when, soon after the siege, Shirley came to Louisbourg, Pepperrell
formally presented them to him, in presence of the soldiers.
Warren no doubt thought that he had a right to precedence, as being 141
an officer of the King in regular standing, while Pepperrell was but a
civilian, clothed with temporary rank by the appointment of a
provincial governor. Warren was an impetuous sailor accustomed to
command, and Pepperrell was a merchant accustomed to manage and
persuade. The difference appears in their correspondence during the
siege. Warren is sometimes brusque and almost peremptory; Pepperrell
is forbearing and considerate to the last degree. He liked Warren,
and, to the last, continued to praise him highly in letters to Shirley
and other provincial governors;[161] while Warren, on occasion of
Shirley’s arrival at Louisbourg, made a speech highly complimentary to
both the general and his soldiers.
The news that Louisbourg was taken, reached Boston at one o’clock in
the morning of the third of July by a vessel sent express. A din of
bells and cannon proclaimed it to the slumbering townsmen, and before
the sun rose, the streets were filled with shouting crowds. At night
every window shone with lamps, and the town was ablaze with fireworks
and bonfires. The next Thursday was appointed a day of general
thanksgiving for a victory believed to be the direct work of
Providence. New York and Philadelphia also hailed the great news with
illuminations, ringing of bells, and firing of cannon.
In England the tidings were received with astonishment and a joy that 142
was dashed with reflections on the strength and mettle of colonists
supposed already to aspire to independence. Pepperrell was made a
baronet, and Warren an admiral. The merchant soldier was commissioned
colonel in the British army; a regiment was given him, to be raised in
America and maintained by the King, while a similar recognition was
granted to the lawyer Shirley.[162]
A question vital to Massachusetts worried her in the midst of her
triumph. She had been bankrupt for many years, and of the large volume
of her outstanding obligations, a part was not worth eight pence in
the pound. Added to her load of debt, she had spent £183,649 sterling
on the Louisbourg expedition. That which Smollett calls “the most
important achievement of the war” would never have taken place but for
her, and Old England, and not New, was to reap the profit; for
Louisbourg, conquered by arms, was to be restored by diplomacy. If the
money she had spent for the mother-country were not repaid, her ruin
was certain. William Bollan, English by birth and a son-in-law of
Shirley, was sent out to urge the just claim of the province, and
after long and vigorous solicitation, he succeeded. The full amount, 143
in sterling value, was paid to Massachusetts, and the expenditures of
New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were also reimbursed.[163]
The people of Boston saw twenty-seven of those long unwieldy trucks
which many elders of the place still remember as used in their youth,
rumbling up King Street to the treasury, loaded with two hundred and
seventeen chests of Spanish dollars, and a hundred barrels of copper
coin. A pound sterling was worth eleven pounds of the old-tenor
currency of Massachusetts, and thirty shillings of the new-tenor.
Those beneficent trucks carried enough to buy in at a stroke
nine-tenths of the old-tenor notes of the province,--nominally worth
above two millions. A stringent tax, laid on by the Assembly, paid the
remaining tenth, and Massachusetts was restored to financial
health.[164]
[121] _Shirley to Newcastle, 7 June, 1745._
[122] Douglas, _Summary_, i. 347.
[123] _Record of the Council of War, 9 May, 1745._
[124] _Vaughan to Pepperrell, 11 May, 1745._
[125] _Vaughan to Pepperrell, 12 May, 1745._
[126] _Waldo to Pepperrell, 23 May, 1745._
[127] _Ibid., 26 May, 1745._
[128] “There is scarce three hundred men on this atact
[attack], so there will be a sufficient number of Whail
boats.”--_Waldo to Pepperrell, 26 May, 10½ p. m._
[129] The list of a company of forty-two “subscribers to go
voluntarily upon an attack against the Island Battery” is
preserved. It includes a negro called “Ruben.” The captain,
chosen by the men, was Daniel Bacon. The fact that neither
this name nor that of Brooks, the chief commander, is to be
found in the list of commissioned officers of Pepperrell’s
little army (see Parsons, _Life of Pepperrell, Appendix_)
suggests the conclusion that the “subscribers” were
permitted to choose officers from their own ranks. This
list, however, is not quite complete.
[130] _Journal of the Siege_, appended to Shirley’s report.
[131] _Duchambon au Ministre, 2 Septembre, 1745. Bigot au
Ministre, 1 Août, 1745._
[132] The exploit of the boy William Tufts in climbing the
French flagstaff and hanging his red coat at the top as a
substitute for the British flag, has also been said to have
taken place on this occasion. It was, as before mentioned,
at the Grand Battery.
[133] Douglas makes it a little less. “We lost in this mad
frolic sixty men killed and drowned, and one hundred and
sixteen prisoners.”--_Summary_, i. 353.
[134] “Toutes les barques furent brisées ou coulées à fond;
le feu fut continuel depuis environ minuit jusqu’à trois
heures du matin.”--_Duchambon au Ministre, 2 Septembre,
1745._
[135] _Bigot au Ministre, 1 Août, 1745._
[136] _Journal of the Siege_, appended to Shirley’s report.
Pomeroy, _Journal_.
[137] _De la Maisonfort à Duchambon, 18 Juin_ (new style),
_1745. Duchambon à De la Maisonfort, 19 Juin_ (new style),
_1745_.
[138] _Report of a Consultation of Officers on board his
Majesty’s ship “Superbe,”_ enclosed in a letter of _Warren
to Pepperrell, 24 May, 1745._
[139] _Pepperrell to Warren, 28 May, 1745._
[140] _Warren to Pepperrell, 29 May, 1745._
[141] _Duchambon au Ministre, 2 Septembre, 1745._
[142] _Warren to Pepperrell, 11 June, 1745. Pepperrell to
Warren, 13 June, 1745._
[143] _Bigot au Ministre, 1 Août, 1745._
[144] _Duchambon au Ministre, 2 Septembre, 1745._
[145] _Duchambon à Pepperrell et Warren, 26 Juin (new style),
1745._
[146] _Warren and Pepperrell to Duchambon, 15 June, 1745._
[147] _Duchambon à Warren et Pepperrell, 27 Juin (new style),
1745._
[148] _Pepperrell to Warren, 16 June, 1745. Warren to
Pepperrell, 16 June, 1745._
[149] _Pepperrell to Shirley, 18 June_ (old style), _1745.
Ibid., 4 July, 1745._
[150] _Habitant de Louisbourg._
[151] Pepperrell more than once complains of a total want of
both powder and balls. Warren writes to him on May 29: “It
is very lucky that we could spare you some powder; I am told
you had not a grain left.”
[152] “C’est par une protection visible de la Providence que
nous avons prévenu une journée qui nous auroit été si
funeste.”--_Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg._
[153] _Warren to Pepperrell, 10 June, 1745._
[154] _Collections of Mass, Hist. Society_, i. 49.
[155] A descendant of Moody, at the village of York, told me
that he was found in the church busy in the work of demolition.
[156] “Thursday, ye 21^{st.} Ye French keep possession yet,
and we are forsed to stand at their Dores to gard them.”--_Diary
of a Soldier, anonymous._
[157] _Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg._
[158] _Report of Consultation on board the “Superbe,” 7 June,
1745._ “Commodore Warren did say publickly that before
the Circular Battery was reduced he would not venture in
here with three times ye sea force he had with him, and,
through divine assistance, we tore that [battery] and this
city almost to pieces.”--_Pepperrell to Shirley, 4 July,
1745._
[159] Warren had no men to spare. He says: “If it should be
thought necessary to join your troops with any men from our
ships, it should only be done for some sudden attack that
may be executed in one day or night.”--_Warren to Pepperrell,
11 May, 1745._ No such occasion arose.
[160] _Ibid., 13 May, 1745._ On the nineteenth of May, 1746,
Warren made a parting speech to the New England men at
Louisbourg, in which he tells them that it was they who
conquered the country, and expresses the hope that should
the French try to recover it, “the same Spirit that induced
you to make this Conquest will prompt you to protect it.”
See the speech in _Beamish-Murdoch_, ii. 100-102.
[161] See extracts in Parsons, 105, 106. The _Habitant de
Louisbourg_ extols Warren, but is not partial to Pepperrell,
whom he calls, incorrectly, “the son of a Boston shoemaker.”
[162] To Rous, captain of a provincial cruiser, whom Warren
had commended for conduct and courage, was given the command
of a ship in the royal navy.
“Tell your Council and Assembly, in his Majesty’s name,”
writes Newcastle to Shirley, “that their conduct will always
entitle them, in a particular manner, to his royal favor and
protection.”--_Newcastle to Shirley, 10 August, 1745._
[163] £183,649 to Massachusetts; £16,355 to New Hampshire;
£28,863 to Connecticut; £6,332 to Rhode Island.
[164] Palfrey, _New England_, v. 101-109; Shirley, _Report
to the Board of Trade_. _Bollan to Secretary Willard_,
in _Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc._, i. 53; Hutchinson, _Hist.
Mass._, ii. 391-395. _Letters of Bollan_ in Massachusetts
Archives.
It was through the exertions of the much-abused Thomas
Hutchinson, Speaker of the Assembly and historian of
Massachusetts, that the money was used for the laudable
purpose of extinguishing the old debt.
Shirley did his utmost to support Bollan in his efforts to
obtain compensation, and after highly praising the zeal and
loyalty of the people of his province, he writes to
Newcastle: “Justice, as well as the affection which I bear
to ’em, constrains me to beseech your Grace to recommend
their Case to his Majesty’s paternal Care & Tenderness in 144
the Strongest manner.”--_Shirley to Newcastle, 6 November,
1745._
The English documents on the siege of Louisbourg are many
and voluminous. The Pepperrell Papers and the Belknap
Papers, both in the library of the Massachusetts Historical
Society, afford a vast number of contemporary letters and
documents on the subject. The large volume entitled _Siege
of Louisbourg_, in the same repository, contains many
more, including a number of autograph diaries of soldiers
and others. To these are to be added the journals of General
Wolcott, James Gibson, Benjamin Cleaves, Seth Pomeroy, and
several others, in print or manuscript, among which is
especially to be noted the journal appended to Shirley’s
Letter to the Duke of Newcastle of October 28, 1745, and
bearing the names of Pepperrell, Brigadier Waldo, Colonel
Moore, and Lieutenant-Colonels Lothrop and Gridley, who
attest its accuracy. Many papers have also been drawn from
the Public Record Office of London.
Accounts of this affair have hitherto rested, with but
slight exceptions, on English sources alone. The archives of
France have furnished useful material to the foregoing
narrative, notably the long report of the governor,
Duchambon, to the minister of war, and the letter of the
intendant, Bigot, to the same personage, within about six
weeks after the surrender. But the most curious French
evidence respecting the siege is the _Lettre d’un Habitant
de Louisbourg contenant une Relation exacte & circonstanciée
de la Prise de l’Isle-Royale par les Anglois. A Québec, chez
Guillaume le Sincère, à l’Image de la Vérité, 1745._ This
little work, of eighty-one printed pages, is extremely rare.
I could study it only by having _a literatim_ transcript
made from the copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale, as it was
not in the British Museum. It bears the signature B. L. N.,
and is dated _à ... ce 28 Août, 1745._ The imprint of
Québec, etc., is certainly a mask, the book having no doubt
been printed in France. It severely criticises Duchambon,
and makes him mainly answerable for the disaster.
For French views of the siege of Louisbourg, _see_ Appendix B.