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 a.s.sault of the Island Battery, which closed the entrance of the harbor to the British squadron, and kept it open to ships from France. n.o.body 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 a.s.sured 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 ash.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e, 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-b.a.l.l.s, of which the men on sh.o.r.e 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 Aout. 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 cutla.s.s. [Footnote: The exploit of the boy William Tufts in climbing the French flag-staff and hanging his red coat at the top as a subst.i.tute 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 brisees ou coulees a fond; le feu fut continuel depuis environ minuit jusqu"a 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 a.s.sailants at five hundred, of whom he says that all perished, except the one hundred and nineteen who were captured. [Footnote: _Bigot au Ministre, 1 Aout, 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 sh.o.r.e 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 Beauba.s.sin. Beauba.s.sin 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, Beauba.s.sin 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 Pet.i.t 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 a Duchambon, 18 Juin_ (new style), 1745. _Duchambon a 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 a.s.sault 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 pa.s.s 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 t.i.tle 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 bombsh.e.l.ls 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 Franc?ur_, 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 quant.i.ty 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 sh.e.l.l. "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 a.s.sault." [Footnote: _Bigot au Ministre, 1 Aout, 1745_.] On the 15th of June they brought a pet.i.tion 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 a Pepperrell et Warren, 26 Juin_ (new style), 1745.] Warren chanced to be on sh.o.r.e 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a 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 sh.e.l.ls," he writes to Shirley; "neither have I red in History of any troops behaving with greater courage. We gave them about nine thousand cannon-b.a.l.l.s 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 sh.e.l.ls. 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 b.a.l.l.s. 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 a.s.sault, 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 prevenu une journee qui nous auroit ete 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 a.s.sault 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 l.u.s.tily. 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 Ma.s.s. 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 a.s.sured 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 ent.i.tled 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.... n.o.body 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 a.s.sistance, 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 ent.i.tled 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 a.s.sembly, in his Majesty"s name," writes Newcastle to Shirley, "that their conduct will always ent.i.tle them, in a particular manner, to his royal favor and protection."
_Newcastle to Shirley, 10 Aug. 1745._]
A question vital to Ma.s.sachusetts 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, and the expenditures of New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were also reimbursed. [Footnote: 183,649 to Ma.s.sachusetts; 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 Ma.s.sachusetts, and thirty shillings of the new-tenor.