The next morning, as Vaughan was returning to camp with only thirteen men, he ascended the hill which overlooked the battery, and observing that the chimneys in the barracks were without smoke, and the staff without its flag, he hired an Indian, with a bottle of rum, to crawl through an embrasure, and open the gate. Vaughan entered with his men and defended the battery against a party then landing to regain possession until the arrival of a reinforcement.
For fourteen nights successively, the troops were employed in dragging cannon from the landing place to the encampment, a distance of near two miles, through a deep morass. The army, being totally unacquainted with the art of conducting sieges, made its approaches irregularly, and sustained some loss on this account.
While these approaches were making by land, the ships of war which continued to cruise off the harbour, fell in with and captured the Vigilant, a French man of war of sixty-four guns, having on board a reinforcement of five hundred and sixty men, and a large quantity of stores for the garrison. Soon after this, an unsuccessful, and, perhaps, a rash attempt was made on the island battery by four hundred men; of whom sixty were killed, and one hundred and sixteen taken prisoners. All these prisoners, as if by previous concert, exaggerated the numbers of the besieging army, a deception which was favoured by the unevenness of the ground, and the dispersed state of the troops; and which probably contributed to the surrender of the place. The provincial army did indeed present a formidable front, but, in the rear, all was frolic and confusion.
The Vigilant had been anxiously expected by the garrison, and the information of her capture excited a considerable degree of perturbation. This event, with the erection of some works on the high cliff at the light house, by which the island battery was much annoyed, and the preparations evidently making for a general assault, determined Duchambon, the governor of Louisbourg, to surrender; and, in a few days, he capitulated.
Louisbourg surrenders.
Upon entering the fortress, and viewing its strength, and its means of defence, all perceived how impracticable it would have been to carry it by assault.[141]
The joy excited in the British colonies by the success of the expedition against Louisbourg was unbounded. Even those who had refused to participate in its hazards and expense, were sensible of its advantages, and of the lustre it shed on the American arms. Although some disposition was manifested in England, to ascribe the whole merit of the conquest to the navy, colonel Pepperel received, with the title of baronet, the more substantial reward of a regiment in the British service, to be raised in America; and the same mark of royal favour was bestowed on governor Shirley. Reimbursements too were made by parliament for the expenses of the expedition. It was the only decisive advantage obtained by the English during the war.
The capture of Louisbourg, most probably, preserved Nova Scotia. Duvivier, who had embarked for France to solicit an armament for the conquest of that province, sailed, in July, 1745, with seven ships of war, and a body of land forces. He was ordered to stop at Louisbourg, and thence to proceed in the execution of his plan. Hearing, at sea, of the fall of that place, and that a British squadron was stationed at it, he relinquished the expedition against Nova Scotia, and returned to Europe.
The British empire on the American continent consisted, originally, of two feeble settlements unconnected with, and almost unknown to each other. For a long time the southern colonies, separated from those of New England by an immense wilderness, and by the possessions of other European powers, had no intercourse with them, except what was produced by the small trading vessels of the north, which occasionally entered the rivers of the south. Neither participated in the wars or pursuits of the other; nor were they, in any respect, actuated by common views, or united by common interest. The conquest of the country between Connecticut and Maryland, laid a foundation, which the settlement of the middle colonies completed, for connecting these disjoined members, and forming one consolidated whole, capable of moving, and acting in concert. This gradual change, unobserved in its commencement, had now become too perceptible to be longer overlooked; and, henceforward, the efforts of the colonies, were in a great measure combined, and directed to a common object.
France, as well as England, had extended her views with her settlements; and, after the fall of Louisbourg, the governments of both nations meditated important operations for the ensuing campaign in America.
Great plans of the belligerents.
France contemplated, not only the recovery of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia, but the total devastation of the sea coast, if not the entire conquest of New England.
Britain, on her part, calculated on the reduction of Canada, and the entire expulsion of the French from the American continent.
Shirley repaired to Louisbourg, after its surrender, where he held a consultation with Warren and Pepperel on the favourite subject of future and more extensive operations against the neighbouring possessions of France. 1746From that place he wrote pressingly to administration, for reinforcements of men and ships to enable him to execute his plans. The capture of Louisbourg gave such weight to his solicitations that, in the following spring, the duke of New Castle, then secretary of state, addressed a circular letter to the governors of the provinces as far south as Virginia, requiring them to raise as many men as they could spare, and hold them in readiness to act according to the orders that should be received. Before this letter was written, an extensive plan of operations had been digested in the British cabinet. It was proposed to detach a military and naval armament which should, early in the season, join the troops to be raised in New England, at Louisbourg; whence they were to proceed up the St. Lawrence to Quebec. The troops from New York, and from the more southern provinces, were to be collected at Albany, and to march against Crown Point, and Montreal.
This plan, so far as it depended on the colonies, was executed with promptness and alacrity. The men were raised, and waited with impatience for employment; but neither troops, nor orders, arrived from England. The fleet destined for this service, sailed seven times from Spithead; and was compelled as often, by contrary winds, to return.
Late in the season, the military commanders in America, despairing of the succours promised by England, determined to assemble a body of provincials at Albany, and make an attempt on Crown Point. While preparing for the execution of this plan, they received accounts stating that Annapolis was in danger from a body of French and Indians assembled at Minas; upon which, orders were issued for the troops of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire, to embark for Nova Scotia. Before these orders could be executed, intelligence was received which directed their attention to their own defence.
It was reported that a large fleet and army, under the command of the duke D'Anville, had arrived in Nova Scotia, and the views of conquest, which had been formed by the northern colonies, were converted into fears for their own safety. For six weeks, continual apprehensions of invasion were entertained; and the most vigorous measures were taken to repel it. From this state of anxious solicitude, they were at length relieved by the arrival of some prisoners set at liberty by the French, who communicated the extreme distress of the fleet.
This formidable armament consisted of near forty ships of war, seven of which were of the line; of two artillery ships; and of fifty-six transports laden with provisions and military stores, carrying three thousand five hundred land forces, and forty thousand stand of small arms, for the use of the Canadians and Indians. The French fleet dispersed by a storm.The fleet sailed in June, but was attacked by such furious and repeated storms, that many of the ships were wrecked, and others dispersed. In addition to this disaster, the troops were infected with a disease which carried them off in great numbers. While lying in Chebucto, under these circumstances, a vessel which had been dispatched by governor Shirley to admiral Townshend at Louisbourg, with a letter stating his expectation that a British fleet would follow that of France to America, was intercepted by a cruiser, and brought