The Great Fortress | Page 7

was remote, weeks away from exchanges with Quebec, months from
exchanges with any part of France or Switzerland. And what other
foreign station could have been more thoroughly uncongenial, except,
perhaps, a convict station in the tropics? Bad quarters were endurable
in Paris or even in the provinces, where five minutes' walk would take
one into something pleasanter. Bad fortifications would inspire less
apprehension anywhere in France, where there was at least an army
always ready to take the field. But cold, cramped quarters in foggy little
Louisbourg, between the estranging sea and an uncouth land of rock,
bog, sand, and scrubby vegetation, made all the world of difference in
the soldier's eyes. Add to this his want of faith in works which he saw
being scamped by rascally contractors, and we can begin to understand
why the general attitude of town and garrison alike was one of 'Here
to-day and gone to-morrow.'


CHAPTER II
THE SEA LINK LOST 1745
Rome would not rest till she had ruined Carthage. Britain would not
rest till she had seen Dunkirk demolished. New England would not rest

till she had taken Louisbourg.
Louisbourg was unique in all America, and that was its undoing. It was
the one sentinel beside the gateway to New France; therefore it ought to
be taken before Quebec and Canada were attacked. It was the one
corsair lying in perpetual wait beside the British lines of seaborne trade;
therefore it must be taken before British shipping could be safe. It was
the one French sea link between the Old World and the New; therefore
its breaking was of supreme importance. It was the one real fortress
ever heard of in America, and it was in absolutely alien hands;
therefore, so ran New England logic, it was most offensive to all true
Britons, New Englanders, and Puritans; to all rivals in smuggling, trade,
and privateering; and to all right-thinking people generally.
The weakness of Louisbourg was very welcome news to energetic
Massachusetts. In 1744, when Frederick the Great had begun the War
of the Austrian Succession and France had taken arms against Great
Britain, du Quesnel, the governor of Louisbourg, who had received the
intelligence of these events some weeks before the alert Bostonians, at
once decided to win credit by striking the first blow. He was much
disliked in Louisbourg. He drank hard, cursed his subordinates when in
his cups, and set the whole place by the ears. Moreover, many of those
under him wished to avoid giving the British Americans any
provocation, in the hope that the war might be confined to Europe. But
none dared to refuse a legal and positive order. So in May his
expedition left for Canso, where there was a little home-made British
fort on the strait between Cape Breton and the mainland of Nova Scotia.
The eighty fishermen in Canso surrendered to du Vivier, the French
commander, who sent them on to Boston, after burning their fort to the
ground. Elated by this somewhat absurd success, and strengthened by
nearly a hundred regulars and four hundred Indians, who raised his
total force to at least a thousand men, du Vivier next proceeded against
Annapolis on the west side of Nova Scotia. But Mascarene, the British
commander there, stood fast on his defence, though his men were few
and his means small. The Acadian French in the vicinity were afraid to
join du Vivier openly. The siege dragged on. The British received a
slight reinforcement. The French did not. And in September du Vivier

suddenly retired without attempting an assault.
The burning of Canso and the attack on Annapolis stirred up the wrath
of New England. A wild enthusiast, William Vaughan, urged Governor
Shirley of Massachusetts to make an immediate counter-attack. Shirley
was an English lawyer, good at his own work, but very anxious to
become famous as a conqueror. He lent a willing ear to Vaughan, and
astounded the General Court of Massachusetts on January 21, 1745, by
first inducing the members to swear secrecy and then asking them to
consider a plan for a colonial expedition against Louisbourg. He and
they were on very good terms. But they were provincial, cautious, and
naturally slow when it came to planning campaigns and pledging their
credit for what was then an enormous sum of money. Nor could they be
blamed. None of them knew much about armies and navies; most
thought Louisbourg was a real transatlantic Dunkirk; and all knew that
they were quite insolvent already. Their joint committee of the two
Houses reported against the scheme; whereupon each House carried a
secret adverse vote by a large majority.
But, just before these votes were taken, a Puritan member from a
country district wrestled in what he thought confidential prayer with
such loud