However Shirley’s efforts to avert a present danger might succeed, nobody saw more clearly than he did that his measures only went half way toward their mark. With Louisburg intact, the enemy might sweep the coasts of New England with their expeditions, and her commerce from the seas. The return of spring, when warlike operations might be again resumed, was therefore looked forward to at Boston with the utmost uneasiness. Merchants would not risk their ships on the ocean. Fishermen dared not think of putting to sea for their customary voyages to the Grand Banks or the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Here was a state of things which a people who lived by their commerce and fisheries could only contemplate with the most serious forebodings. It was fully equivalent to a blockade of their ports, a stoppage of their industries, with consequent stagnation paralyzing all their multitudinous occupations.

Naturally the subject became a foremost matter of discussion in the official and social circles, in the pulpits, and in the tavern clubs of the New England capital. It was the serious topic in the counting-house and the table-talk at home. It drifted out among the laboring classes, who had so much at stake, with varied embellishment. It went out into the country, gathering to itself fresh rumors like a rolling snowball. In all these coteries, whether of the councillors over their wine, of the merchants around their punch-bowls, of the smutty smith at his forge, or the common dock-laborer, the same conclusion was reached, and constantly reiterated—Louisburg must be taken!—Yes; Louisburg must be taken! Upon this decision the people stood as one man.

It did not, however, enter into the minds of even the most sanguine advocates of this idea that they themselves would be shortly called upon to make it effective in the one way possible. Such a proposal would have been laughed at, at first. The general voice was that the land and naval forces of the kingdom ought to be employed for the reduction of Louisburg, because no others were available; but, meantime, a public opinion had been formed which only wanted a proper direction to turn it into a force capable of doing what it had decided upon. There was but one man in the province who was equal to this task.

That some other man may have had the same idea is but natural, when the same subject was uppermost in the minds of all; but where others tossed it to and fro, like a tennis-ball, only this one man grasped it with the force of a master mind.[4] He was William Shirley, governor of Massachusetts.

Governor Shirley soon showed himself the man for the crisis. He was a lawyer of good abilities, with a political reputation to make. He had a clear head, strong will, plausible manner, and immovable persistency in the pursuit of a favorite project. If not a military man by education, he had, at any rate, the military instinct. He was, moreover, a shrewd manager, not easily disheartened or turned aside from his purpose by a first rebuff, yet knowing how to yield when, by doing so, he could see his way to carry his point in the end.

The French, we remember, had made some prisoners at Canso, who were first taken to Louisburg, and then sent to Boston on parole. These captives knew the place, but our smuggling merchantmen knew it much better. They were able to give a pretty exact account of the condition of things at the fortress. We are now looking backward a little. But what seems to have made the strongest impression was the news that the garrison itself had been in open mutiny during the winter, most of the soldiers being Swiss, whose loyalty, it was supposed, had been more or less shaken.[5]

Whether William Vaughan,[6] a New Hampshire merchant resident in Maine, first broached the project of taking Louisburg to Shirley, cannot now determined, but, let the honor belong primarily where it may, Vaughan’s scheme, as outlined by him, was too absurd for serious consideration, however strongly he may have believed in it himself. He seems to have belonged to the class of enthusiasts at whose breath obstacles vanish away; yet we are bound to say of him that his own easy confidence, with his habit of throwing himself heart and soul into whatever he undertook, gained over a good many others to his way of thinking. Shirley therefore encouraged Vaughan, who, after rendering really valuable services, became so thoroughly imbued with the notion that he was not only the originator of the expedition, but the chief actor in it, that the value of those services is somewhat obscured.

Governor Shirley’s project now was to take Louisburg, with such means as he himself could get together. He, too, was more or less carried away by the spirit which animated him, as men must be to make others believe in them, but he never lost his head. To a cool judgment, some of Shirley’s plans for assaulting Louisburg seem almost, if not quite, as irrational as Vaughan’s, yet Shirley was not the man to commit any overt act of folly, or shut his ears to prudent counsels. Being so well acquainted with the temper and spirit of the New England people, he knew that, before they would fight, they must be convinced. To this end, he strengthened himself with the proper arguments, wisely keeping his own counsel until everything should be ripe for action. He knew that the garrison of Louisburg was mutinous, that its isolated position invited an attack, and that the extensive works were much out of repair. Moreover, he had calculated, almost to a day, the time when the annual supplies of men and munitions would arrive from France. He knew that Quebec was too distant for effectively aiding Louisburg. An attack under such conditions seemed to hold out a tempting prospect of success; yet realizing, as Shirley did, that under any circumstances, no matter how favorable or alluring they might seem, the enterprise would be looked upon as one of unparalleled audacity, if not as utterly hopeless or visionary, he determined to stake his own political fortunes upon the issue and abide the result.

The garrison of Louisburg had been, in fact, in open revolt, the outbreak proving so serious that the commanding officer had begged his government to replace the disaffected troops with others, who could be depended upon. Shirley, therefore, reckoned on a half-hearted resistance or none at all. In a word, it was his plan to surprise and take the place before it could be re-enforced.

After obtaining a pledge of secrecy from the members, Shirley proceeded to lay his project before the provincial legislature of Massachusetts, which was then in session. The governor’s statement, which was certainly cool and dispassionate, ran somewhat to this effect: “Gentlemen of the General Court, either we must take Louisburg or see our trade annihilated. If you are of my mind we will take it. I have reason to know that the garrison is insubordinate. There is good ground for believing that the commandant is afraid of his own men, that the works are out of repair and the stores running low. I need not dwell further on what is so well known to you all. Now, with four thousand such soldiers as this and the neighboring provinces can furnish, aided by a naval force similarly equipped, the place must surely fall into our hands. I have, moreover, strong hopes of aid from His Majesty’s ships, now in our waters. But the great thing is to throw our forces upon Louisburg before the enemy can hear of our design. Secrecy and celerity are therefore of the last importance. Consider well, gentlemen, that such an opportunity is not likely to occur again. What say you? is Louisburg to be ours or not?”

The conservative provincial assembly deliberated upon the proposal with closed doors, and with great unanimity rejected it. The sum of its decision was this: “If we risk nothing, we lose nothing. Should the enemy strike us, we can strike back again. We can ruin his commerce as well as he can destroy ours. Our policy is to stand on the defensive. Very possibly the men might be raised, but where are the arsenals to equip them; where is the money to come from to pay them; where are the engineers, the artillerists, the siege artillery, naval stores, and all the warlike material necessary to such a siege? Why, we haven’t a single soldier; we haven’t a penny. Surely your excellency must be jesting with us. It is a magnificent project, but visionary, your excellency, quite visionary.”