The Great Fortress | Page 9

mounting 216 guns. In addition to both
these forces there were the transports, which had considerable crews.
But all these together, if caught on the open sea, would be no match for
a few regular men-of-war. New England had no navy, though the New
Englanders had enjoyed a good deal of experience in minor
privateering against the Spaniards during the last few years, as well as a
certain amount of downright piracy in time of peace, whenever a
Frenchman or a Spaniard could be safely taken at a disadvantage. So
Shirley asked Commodore Warren, commanding the North American
station, to lend his aid. Warren had married an American and was very
well disposed towards the colonists. But, having no orders from

England, he at first felt obliged to refuse. Within a short time, however,
he was given a free hand by the Imperial government, which authorized
him to concert measures with Shirley 'for the annoyance of the enemy,
and for his Majesty's Service in North America.'
Warren immediately sailed for Canso with three men-of-war and sent
for another to join him. His wait for orders made him nearly three
weeks later than the New Englanders in arriving at the rendezvous. But
this delay, due to no fault of his own, was really an advantage to the
New England militia, who thus had a chance of learning a little more
drill and discipline. His four vessels carried 180 guns and 1,150 men at
full strength. The thirteen Provincial armed vessels carried more than
1,000 men. No exact returns were ever made out for the transports. But
as '68 lay at anchor' in Canso harbour, while others 'came dropping in
from day to day,' as there were 4,270 militiamen on board, in addition
to all the stores, and as the French counted '96 transports' making for
Gabarus Bay, there could not have been less than 100, while the crews
could hardly have mustered less than an average of 20 men each. The
grand total, at the beginning of the expedition, could not, therefore,
have been less than 8,000 men, of all sorts put together--over 4,000
American Provincial militia, over 1,000 men of the Royal Navy, quite
1,000 men aboard the Provincial fighting vessels, and at least 2,000
more as crews to work the transports.
May 1, the first Sunday the Provincials spent at Canso, was a day of
great and multifarious activity, both sacred and profane. Parson Moody,
the same who had taken the war-path with his iconoclastic hatchet,
delivered a tremendous philippic from the text, 'Thy people shall be
willing in the day of Thy power.' Luckily for his congregation he had
the voice of a Stentor, as there were several mundane competitors in an
adjoining field, each bawling the word of command at the full pitch of
his lungs. A conscientious diarist, though full of sabbatarian zeal, was
fain to admit that 'Severall sorts of Busnesses was a-Going on: Sum
a-Exercising, Sum a-Hearing o' the Preaching.'
On May 5 Warren sailed into Canso. The Provincials thought the date
of his arrival a very happy omen, as it fell on what was then, according

to the Old Style calendar, St George's Day, April 23. After a conference
with Pepperrell he hurried off to begin the blockade of Louisbourg. A
week later, May 21, the transports joined him there, and landed their
militiamen for one of the most eccentric sieges ever known.
While the British had been spending the first four months of 1745 in
preparing 8,000 men, the French authorities in Louisbourg, whose force
was less than 2,000, had been wasting the same precious time in
ridiculous councils of war. It is a well-known saying that councils of
war never fight. But these Louisbourg councils did not even prepare to
fight. The news from Boston was not heeded. Worse yet, no attention
was paid to the American scouting vessels, which had been hovering
off the coast for more than a month. The bibulous du Quesnel had died
in October. But his successor, du Chambon, was no better as a
commandant. Perhaps the kindest thing to say of du Chambon is that he
was the foolish father of a knavish son--of that du Chambon de Vergor
who, in the next war, surrendered Fort Beausejour without a siege and
left one sleepy sentry to watch Wolfe's Cove the night before the Battle
of the Plains.
It is true that du Chambon had succeeded to a thoroughly bad command.
He had no naval force whatever; and the military force had become
worse instead of better. The mutiny in December had left the 560
regulars in a very sullen frame of mind. They knew that acquisitive
government officials were cheating them out of their proper rations of
bacon and beans. The officials knew that the soldiers knew.