This expedition was to undertake nothing less than the capture of Louisbourg itself.The colonial troops had been so often reminded of their inferiority to regular troops as fighting forces that, with provincial docility, they had almost come to accept the estimate.It was well enough for them to fight irregular French and Indian bands, but to attack a fortress defended by a French garrison was something that only a few bold spirits among them could imagine.Such a spirit, however, was William Vaughan, a Maine trader, deeply involved in the fishing industry and confronted with ruin from hostile Louisbourg.Shirley, the Governor of Massachusetts, a man of eager ambition, took up the proposal and worked out an elaborate plan.The prisoners who had been captured at Canseau by the French and interned at Louisbourg now arrived at Boston and told of bad conditions in the fortress.
In January, 1745, Shirley called a session of the General Court, the little parliament of Massachusetts, and, having taken the unusual step of pledging the members to secrecy, he unfolded his plan.But it proved too bold for the prudent legislators, and they voted it down.Meanwhile New England trade was suffering from ships which used Louisbourg as a base.At length public opinion was aroused and, when Shirley again called the General Court, a bare majority endorsed his plan.Soon thereafter New England was aflame.Appeals for help were sent to England and, it is said, even to Jamaica.Shirley counted on aid from a British squadron, under Commodore Peter Warren, in American waters, but at first Warren had no instructions to help such a plan.This disappointment did not keep New England from going on alone.In the end Warren received instructions to give the necessary substantial aid, and he established a strict blockade which played a vital part in the siege of the French fortress.
In this hour of deadly peril Louisbourg was in not quite happy case.Some of the French officers, who, would otherwise have starved on their low pay, were taking part in illicit trade and were neglecting their duties.Just after Christmas in 1744, there had been a mutiny over a petty question of butter and bacon.
Here, as in all French colonies, there were cliques, with the suspicions and bitterness which they involve.The Governor Duchambon, though brave enough, was a man of poor judgment in a position that required both tact and talent.The English did not make the mistake of delaying their preparations.They were indeed so prompt that they arrived at Canseau early in April and had to wait for the ice to break up in Gabarus Bay, near Louisbourg, where they intended to land.Here, on April 30, the great fleet appeared.A watcher in Louisbourg counted ninety-six ships standing off shore.With little opposition from the French the amazing army landed at Freshwater Cove.
Then began an astonishing siege.The commander of the New England forces, William Pepperrell, was a Maine trader, who dealt in a little of everything, fish, groceries, lumber, ships, land.
Though innocent of military science, he was firm and tactful.ABritish officer with strict military ideas could not, perhaps, have led that strange army with success.Pepperrell knew that he had good fighting material; he knew, too, how to handle it.In his army of some four thousand men there was probably not one officer with a regular training.Few of his force had proper equipment, but nearly all his men were handy on a ship as well as on land.In Louisbourg were about two thousand defenders, of whom only five or six hundred were French regulars.These professional soldiers watched with contempt not untouched with apprehension the breaches of military precedent in the operations of the besiegers.Men harnessed like horses dragged guns through morasses into position, exposed themselves recklessly, and showed the skill, initiative, and resolution which we have now come to consider the dominant qualities of the Yankee.In time Warren arrived with a British squadron and then the French were puzzled anew.They could not understand the relations between the fleet and the army, which seemed to them to belong to different nations.The New Englanders appeared to be under a Governor who was something like an independent monarch.He had drawn up elaborate plans for his army, comical in their apparent disregard of the realities of war, naming the hour when the force should land "unobserved" before Louisbourg, instructing Pepperrell to surprise that place while every one was asleep, and so on.Kindly Providence was expected even to give continuous good weather.
"The English appear to have enlisted Heaven in their interests,"said a despairing resident of the town; "so long as the expedition lasted they had the most beautiful weather in the world." There were no storms; the winds were favorable; fog, so common on that coast, did not creep in; and the sky was clear.
Among the French the opinion prevailed that the English colonists were ferocious pirates plotting eternally to destroy the power of France.Their liberty, however, it was well understood, had made them strong; and now they quickly became formidable soldiers.
Their shooting, bad at first, was, in the end, superb.Sometimes in their excess of zeal they overcharged their cannon so that the guns burst.But they managed to hit practically every house in Louisbourg, and since most of the houses were of wood there was constant danger of fire.Some of the French fought well.Even children of ten and twelve helped to carry ammunition.
