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
7th 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 them. Nine in ten of the men had no bayonets,
[Footnote: _Shirley to Newcastle, 7 June, 1745._] many had no shoes,
and it is said that the scaling-ladders they had brought from Boston were
ten feet too short. [Footnote: Douglas, _Summary_, I. 347.] 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." [Footnote: _Record
of the Council of War, 9 May, 1745._]
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. [Footnote: _Vaughan to Pepperell,
11 May, 1745._] 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 time for
plenty of pistols and one hundred hand-grenades, with men who know how to
use them. [Footnote: _Vaughan to Pepperell, 12 May, 1745._] 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 23d, 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." [Footnote: _Waldo to Pepperell, 23 May, 1745._] 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." [Footnote: _Ibid.,
26 May, 1745._] On the 26th 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. [Footnote:
"There is scarce three hundred men on this atact [attack], so there will be
a sufficient number of Whail boats." _Ibid., 26 May, 10-1/2 p.m._]
These were to be joined by a hundred or a hundred and fifty more from
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. [Footnote: 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 Pepperell,
Appendix_) suggests the conclusion that the "subscribers" were permitted
to choose officers from their own ranks. This list, however is not quite
complete.] 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. [Footnote: _Journal of the Siege_, appended to Shirley's
report.] It was now a little after midnight. Captain d'Aillebout, the
commandant, was on the wratch, 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 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.
[Footnote: _Duchambon au Ministre, 2 Sept. 1745. Bigot au
Ministre, 1 Août. 1745._] 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. [Footnote: The exploit of the boy William Tufts in
climbing the French flag-staff 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.] 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, 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." [Footnote: 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.] 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, [Footnote: "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 Sept. 1745_.]--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. [Footnote: _Bigot au Ministre, 1 Août,
1745_.]
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 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 19th 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 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. [Footnote: _Journal of the
Siege_, appended to Shirley's report. Pomeroy, _Journal_.] 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 Sieur de la Valliere,
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 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. [Footnote: _De la Maisonfort à Duchambon, 18 Juin_ (new
style), 1745. _Duchambon à de la Maisonfort, 19 Juin_ (new style),
1745.]
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 by the so-called Acadian neutrals. Mascarene, the governor,
kept them at bay till the 24th 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 four-fold, 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 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. [Footnote: _Report of a
Consultation of Officers on board his Majesty's ship "Superbe,"_
enclosed in a letter of _Warren to Pepperrell, 24 May, 1745._] 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." [Footnote: _Pepperrell to Warren, 28 May, 1745._]
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 Majesty's service." [Footnote: _Warren to Pepperrell,
29 May, 1745._]
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 half way. 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; 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 Francur_, 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." [Footnote: _Duchambon au Ministre, 2
Sept._ 1745.]
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 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. [Footnote: _Warren to Pepperrell, 11
June, 1745. Pepperrell to Warren, 13 June, 1745._]
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." [Footnote: _Bigot au Ministre, 1 Août, 1745_.] On the 15th
of June they brought a petition to Duchambon, begging him to capitulate.
[Footnote: _Duchambon au Ministre, 2 Sept. 1745_.]
On that day Captain Sherburn, at the advanced battery, wrote in his 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. [Footnote: _Duchambon à
Pepperrell et Warren, 26 Juin_ (new style), 1745.] 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. [Footnote: _Warren and Pepperrell to
Duchambon, 15 June_, 1745.]
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 7th 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 of his acceptance, that his troops should
march out of the fortress with their arms and colors. [Footnote:
_Duchambon à Warren et Pepperrell, 27 Juin_ (new style), 1745.] 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." [Footnote: _Pepperrell to
Warren, 16 June, 1745, Warren to Pepperrell, 16 June, 1745._] The
articles were signed on both sides, and on the 17th 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." [Footnote: _Pepperrell to Shirley, 18 June_ (old
style,) 1745. _Ibid._, 4 July, 1745.] 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 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, [Footnote:
_Habitant de Louisbourg._]--in which particular the besiegers fared
little better. [Footnote: Pepperrell more than once complains of a total
want of both powder and balls. Warren writes to him on May 29th: "It is
very lucky that we could spare you some powder; I am told you had not a
grain left."]
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; [Footnote: "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._]
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, and
give the Ladys of Louisbourg a Gallant Ball." [Footnote: _Warren to
Pepperrell, 10 June, 1745._] 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. [Footnote: _Collection of Mass. Hist. Society. I. 49_]
It is said that he had been seen in the French church hewing at the 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.
[Footnote: A descendant of Moody, at the village of York, told me that he
was found in the church busy in the work of demolition.]
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 16th 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.
[Footnote: "Thursday, ye 21st. Ye French keep possession yet, and we are
forsed to stand at their Dores to gard them." _Diary of a Soldier,
anonymous._] "A great Noys and hubbub a mongst ye Solders a bout ye
Plunder; Som 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 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." [Footnote: _Lettre
d'un Habitant de Louisbourg_.]
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 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. [Footnote: _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_.] 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. [Footnote: 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.] Three or four gunners, "to put your men
in the way of loading cannon," [Footnote: _Ibid., 13 May, 1745._ On
the 19th 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.] 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
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 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; [Footnote: See
extracts in Parson, 105,106. The _Habitant de Louisbourg_ extols
Warren, but is not partial to Pepperrell, whom he calls, incorrectly, "the
son of a Boston shoemaker."] 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 3d 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 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. [Footnote: 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 Aug. 1745._]
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 eightpence 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, in sterling value, was paid to Massachusetts,
and the expenditures of New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were
also reimbursed. [Footnote: £183,649 to Massachusetts; £16,355 to New
Hampshire; £28,863 to Connecticut; £6,332 to Rhode Island.] 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 217 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.
[Footnote: 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 the Strongest manner."
_Shirley to Newcastle, 6 Nov. 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 Oct. 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.]