The Governor Duchambon tried to keep up the spirits of the garrison by absurd exaggeration of British losses.He was relying much on help from France, but only a single ship reached port.On May 19, 1745, the besieged saw approaching Louisbourg a great French ship of war, the Vigilant, long looked for, carrying 64guns and 560 men.A northwest wind was blowing which would have brought her quickly into the harbor.The British fleet was two and a half leagues away to leeward.The great ship, thinking herself secure, did not even stop to communicate with Louisbourg but wantonly gave chase to a small British privateer which she encountered near the shore.By skillful maneuvering the smaller ship led the French frigate out to sea again, and then the British squadron came up.From five o'clock to ten in the evening anxious men in Louisbourg watched the fight and saw at last the Vigilant surrender after losing eighty men.This disaster broke the spirit of the defenders, who were already short of ammunition.When they knew that the British were preparing for a combined assault by land and sea, they made terms and surrendered on the 17th of June, after the siege had lasted for seven weeks.
The garrison marched out with the honors of war, to be transported to France, together with such of the civilian population as wished to go.
The British squadron then sailed into the harbor.Pepperrell's strange army, ragged and war-worn after the long siege, entered the town by the south gate.They had fought as crusaders, for to many of them Catholic Louisbourg was a stronghold of Satan.
Whitfield, the great English evangelist, then in New England, had given them a motto--Nil desperandum Christo duce.There is a story that one of the English chaplains, old Parson Moody, a man of about seventy, had brought with him from Boston an axe and was soon found using it to hew down the altar and images in the church at Louisbourg.If the story is true, it does something to explain the belief of the French in the savagery of their opponents who would so treat things which their enemies held to be most sacred.The French had met this fanaticism with a savagery equally intense and directed not against things but against the flesh of men.An inhabitant of Louisbourg during the siege describes the dauntless bravery of the Indian allies of the French during the siege: "Full of hatred for the English whose ferocity they abhor, they destroy all upon whom they can lay hands." He does not have even a word of censure for the savages who tortured and killed in cold blood a party of some twenty English who had been induced to surrender on promise of life.The French declared that not they but the savages were responsible for such barbarities, and the English retorted that the French must control their allies.Feeling on such things was naturally bitter on both sides and did much to decide that the war between the two nations should be to the death.
The fall of Louisbourg brought great exultation to the English colonies.It was a unique event, the first prolonged and successful siege that had as yet taken place north of Mexico.An odd chance of war had decreed that untrained soldiers should win a success so prodigious.New England, it is true, had incurred a heavy expenditure, and her men, having done so much, naturally imagined that they had done everything, and talked as if the siege was wholly their triumph.They were, of course, greatly aided by the fleet under Warren, and the achievement was a joint triumph of army and navy.New England alone, however, had the credit of conceiving and of arousing others to carry out a brilliant exploit.
Victory inspires to further victory.The British, exultant after Louisbourg, were resolved to make an end of French power in America."Delenda est Canada!" cried Governor Shirley to the General Court of Massachusetts, and the response of the members was the voting of men and money on a scale that involved the bankruptcy of the Commonwealth.Other colonies, too, were eager for a cause which had won a success so dazzling, and some eight thousand men were promised for an attack on Canada, proud and valiant Massachusetts contributing nearly one-half of the total number.The old plan was to be followed.New York was to lead in an attack by way of Lake Champlain.New England was to collect its forces at Louisbourg.Here a British fleet should come, carrying eight battalions of British regulars, and, with Warren in command, the whole armada should proceed to Quebec.Nothing came of this elaborate scheme.Neither the promised troops nor the fleet arrived from England.British ministers broke faith with the colonists in the adventure with quite too light a heart.
Stories went abroad of disorder and dissension in Louisbourg under the English and of the weakness of the place.Disease broke out.Hundreds of New England soldiers died and their bones now lie in graves, unmarked and forgotten, on the seashore by the deserted fortress; at almost any time still their bones, washed down by the waves, may be picked up on the beach.There were sullen mutterings of discontent at Louisbourg.Soldiers grumbled over grievances which were sometimes fantastic.Rumor had been persistent in creating a legend that vast wealth, the accumulated plunder brought in by French privateers, was stored in the town.
>From this source a rich reward in booty was expected by the soldiers.In fact, when Louisbourg was taken, all looting was forbidden and the soldiers were put on guard over houses which they had hoped to rob.For the soldiers there were no prizes.
