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
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 nor civil." [Footnote:
_Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg contenant une Relation exacte et
circonstanciée de la Prise de l'Isle Royale par les Anglois._] 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 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, [Footnote:
_Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg._] and from three to four hundred
Micmac and Malecite 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. [Footnote: _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.]
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 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 captains to sail
for Annapolis and aid in its capture, they refused, saying that they had no
orders from the court. [Footnote: _ettre d'un Habitant de
Louisbourg._] 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 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.
[Footnote: 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.] Vaughan was
born at Portsmouth in 1703, and graduated at 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
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 9th 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 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 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. [Footnote: Gibson, _Journal of the Siege of Louisbourg_.]
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. [Footnote:
_Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg_.] The captured militia-men 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. 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. [Footnote: _Report of Council, 12 Jan. 1745_.]
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 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."
[Footnote: Sparks, _Works of Franklin_, VII. 16.] 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 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. [Footnote: Correspondence of Shirley and
Wentworth, in _Belknap Papers, Provincial Papers of New Hampshire_,
V.]
Shirley was less fortunate in Rhode Island. The Governor of that little
colony called Massachusetts "our avowed enemy, always trying to defame us."
[Footnote: _Governor Wanton to the Agent of Rhode Island, 20 Dec.
1745,_ in _Colony Records of Rhode Island_, V.] 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, 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. [Footnote: _Colony Records of Rhode
Island_, V. (_Feb._ 1745).]
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, 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." [Footnote: _Shirley to Wentworth, 16 Feb._ 1745.]
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, sumac, and the shining wax-myrtle, green in summer, red with the
touch of October. The flood 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, sandbanks black
with mussel-beds, and half-submerged meadows of eel-grass, with myriads of
minute shellfish 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 [Footnote: "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.] who migrated in
early life 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 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." [Footnote:
_Governor Wanton to the Agent of Rhode Island in London, 20 Dec.
1745._] 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, was imagined by many to
make for righteousness. So thought the Reverend Thomas Prince, who mourned
over the subsiding delirium of his flock as a sign of back-sliding. "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. [Footnote: Parsons, _Life of
Pepperrell,_ 51.]
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 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.
[Footnote: Belknap, _Hist. New Hampshire_, II. 208.]
Equally zealous, after another fashion, was the Reverend 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. [Footnote: Tradition told me at York by Mr. N. Marshall.] 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. [Footnote:
Lecture of Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted by Cabot, Memoir of Emerson, I. 10.
] 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, 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. [Footnote: 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!"]
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, the eldest being sixty years old, and the youngest
sixteen. [Footnote: Bourne, _Hist, of Wells and Kennebunk_, 371.] 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, [Footnote: 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.] 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. [Footnote: Parsons, _Life
of Pepperrell_, 54.] 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 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. [Footnote: Of the Massachusetts
contingent, three hundred men were raised and maintained at the charge of
the merchant James Gibson.] 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--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, 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. [Footnote: The
list is given by Williamson, II. 227.]
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 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. [Footnote: _Memoirs of the Principal
Transactions of the Last War_, 44.]
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." [Footnote:
_Ibid., 46. Letters of Shirley_ (Public Record Office).]
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 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 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. [Footnote:
_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 Feb_. 1745.] 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.
[Footnote: 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
_Memo for the attacking 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.] The complete and final one is among the
Pepperrell Papers, copied entire in the neat, commercial hand of the
General himself. [Footnote: 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 Feb. 1745 (Public Record Office).] 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 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 24th 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.
[Footnote: The following letter from John Payne of Boston to Colonel Robert
Hale, of the Essex regiment, while it gives no sign of the prevailing
religious feeling, illustrates the ardor of the 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.]