WAR OF THE AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION.—THE FRENCH SEIZE CANSEAU AND ATTACK ANNAPOLIS.—PLAN OF REPRISAL.—WILLIAM VAUGHAN.—GOVERNOR SHIRLEY.—HE ADVISES AN ATTACK ON LOUISBOURG.—THE ASSEMBLY REFUSES, BUT AT LAST CONSENTS.—PREPARATION.—WILLIAM PEPPERRELL.—GEORGE WHITEFIELD.—PARSON MOODY.—THE SOLDIERS.—THE PROVINCIAL NAVY.—COMMODORE WARREN.—SHIRLEY AS AN AMATEUR SOLDIER.—THE FLEET SAILS.
The Peace of Utrecht left unsettled the perilous questions of boundary between the rival powers in North America, and they grew more perilous every day. Yet the quarrel was not yet quite ripe; and though the French Governor, Vaudreuil, and perhaps also his successor, Beauharnois, seemed willing to precipitate it, the courts of London and Versailles still hesitated to appeal to the sword. Now, as before, it was a European, and not an American, quarrel that was to set the world on fire. The War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1744. When Frederic of Prussia seized Silesia and began that bloody conflict, it meant that packs of howling savages would again spread fire and carnage along the New England border.
News of the declaration of war reached Louisbourg some weeks before it reached Boston, and the French military Governor, Duquesnel, thought he saw an opportunity to strike an unexpected blow for the profit of France and his own great honor.
One of the French inhabitants of Louisbourg has left us a short sketch of Duquesnel, whom he calls "capricious, of an uncertain temper, inclined to drink, and when in his cups neither reasonable nor civil." [Footnote: Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg contenant une Relation exacte et circonstanciÉe de la Prise de l'Isle Royale par les Anglois.] He adds that the Governor had offended nearly every officer in the garrison, and denounces him as the "chief cause of our disasters." When Duquesnel heard of the declaration of war, his first thought was to strike some blow before the English were warned. The fishing-station of Canseau was a tempting prize, being a near and an inconvenient neighbor, at the southern end of the Strait of Canseau, which separates the Acadian peninsula from the island of Cape Breton, or Isle Royale, of which Louisbourg was the place of strength. Nothing was easier than to seize Canseau, which had no defence but a wooden redoubt built by the fishermen, and occupied by about eighty Englishmen thinking no danger. Early in May, Duquesnel sent Captain Duvivier against it, with six hundred, or, as the English say, nine hundred soldiers and sailors, escorted by two small armed vessels. The English surrendered, on condition of being sent to Boston, and the miserable hamlet, with its wooden citadel, was burned to the ground.
Thus far successful, the Governor addressed himself to the capture of Annapolis,—which meant the capture of all Acadia. Duvivier was again appointed to the command. His heart was in the work, for he was a descendant of La Tour, feudal claimant of Acadia in the preceding century. Four officers and ninety regular troops were given him, [Footnote: Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg.] and from three to four hundred Micmac and Malecite Indians joined him on the way. The Micmacs, under command, it is said, of their missionary, Le Loutre, had already tried to surprise the English fort, but had only succeeded in killing two unarmed stragglers in the adjacent garden. [Footnote: Mascarene to the Besiegers, 3 July, 1744. Duquesnel had written to all the missionaries "d'engager les sauvages À faire quelque coup important sur le fort" (Annapolis). Duquesnel À Beauharnois, 1 Juin, 1744.]
Annapolis, from the neglect and indifference of the British ministry, was still in such a state of dilapidation that its sandy ramparts were crumbling into the ditches, and the cows of the garrison walked over them at their pleasure. It was held by about a hundred effective men under Major Mascarene, a French Protestant whose family had been driven into exile by the persecutions that followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, sent him a small reinforcement of militia; but as most of these came without arms, and as Mascarene had few or none to give them, they proved of doubtful value.
Duvivier and his followers, white and red, appeared before the fort in August, made their camp behind the ridge of a hill that overlooked it, and marched towards the rampart; but being met by a discharge of cannon-shot, they gave up all thoughts of an immediate assault, began a fusillade under cover of darkness, and kept the garrison on the alert all night.
Duvivier had looked for help from the Acadians of the neighboring village, who were French in blood, faith, and inclination. They would not join him openly, fearing the consequences if his attack should fail; but they did what they could without committing themselves, and made a hundred and fifty scaling-ladders for the besiegers. Duvivier now returned to his first plan of an assault, which, if made with vigor, could hardly have failed. Before attempting it, he sent Mascarene a flag of truce to tell him that he hourly expected two powerful armed ships from Louisbourg, besides a reinforcement of two hundred and fifty regulars, with cannon, mortars, and other enginery of war. At the same time he proposed favorable terms of capitulation, not to take effect till the French war-ships should have appeared. Mascarene refused all terms, saying that when he saw the French ships, he would consider what to do, and meanwhile would defend himself as he could.
The expected ships were the "Ardent" and the "Caribou," then at Louisbourg. A French writer says that when Duquesnel directed their captains to sail for Annapolis and aid in its capture, they refused, saying that they had no orders from the court. [Footnote: ettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg.] Duvivier protracted the parley with Mascarene, and waited in vain for the promised succor. At length the truce was broken off, and the garrison, who had profited by it to get rest and sleep, greeted the renewal of hostilities with three cheers.
Now followed three weeks of desultory attacks; but there was no assault, though Duvivier had boasted that he had the means of making a successful one. He waited for the ships which did not come, and kept the Acadians at work in making ladders and fire-arrows. At length, instead of aid from Louisbourg, two small vessels appeared from Boston, bringing Mascarene a reinforcement of fifty Indian rangers. This discouraged the besiegers, and towards the end of September they suddenly decamped and vanished. "The expedition was a failure," writes the Habitant de Louisbourg," though one might have bet everything on its success, so small was the force that the enemy had to resist us."
This writer thinks that the seizure of Canseau and the attack of Annapolis were sources of dire calamity to the French. "Perhaps," he says, "the English would have let us alone if we had not first insulted them. It was the interest of the people of New England to live at peace with us, and they would no doubt have done so, if we had not taken it into our heads to waken them from their security. They expected that both parties would merely stand on the defensive, without taking part in this cruel war that has set Europe in a blaze."
Whatever might otherwise have been the disposition of the "Bastonnais," or New England people, the attacks on Canseau and Annapolis alarmed and exasperated them, and engendered in some heated brains a project of wild audacity. This was no less than the capture of Louisbourg, reputed the strongest fortress, French or British, in North America, with the possible exception of Quebec, which owed its chief strength to nature, and not to art.
Louisbourg was a standing menace to all the Northern British colonies. It was the only French naval station on the continent, and was such a haunt of privateers that it was called the American Dunkirk. It commanded the chief entrance of Canada, and threatened to ruin the fisheries, which were nearly as vital to New England as was the fur-trade to New France. The French government had spent twenty-five years in fortifying it, and the cost of its powerful defences—constructed after the system of Vauban—was reckoned at thirty million livres.
This was the fortress which William Vaughan of Damariscotta advised Governor Shirley to attack with fifteen hundred raw New England militia. [Footnote: Smollett says that the proposal came from Robert Auchmuty, judge of admiralty in Massachusetts. Hutchinson, Douglas, Belknap, and other well-informed writers ascribe the scheme to Vaughan, while Pepperrell says that it originated with Colonel John Bradstreet. In the Public Record Office there is a letter from Bradstreet, written in 1753, but without address, in which he declares that he not only planned the siege, but "was the Principal Person in conducting it,"—assertions which may pass for what they are worth, Bradstreet being much given to self-assertion.] Vaughan was born at Portsmouth in 1703, and graduated at Harvard College nineteen years later. His father, also a graduate of Harvard, was for a time lieutenant-governor of New Hampshire. Soon after leaving college, the younger Vaughan—a youth of restless and impetuous activity—established a fishing-station on the island of Matinicus, off the coast of Maine, and afterwards became the owner of most of the land on both sides of the little river Damariscotta, where he built a garrison-house, or wooden fort, established a considerable settlement, and carried on an extensive trade in fish and timber. He passed for a man of ability and force, but was accused of a headstrong rashness, a self-confidence that hesitated at nothing, and a harebrained contempt of every obstacle in his way. Once, having fitted out a number of small vessels at Portsmouth for his fishing at Matinicus, he named a time for sailing. It was a gusty and boisterous March day, the sea was rough, and old sailors told him that such craft could not carry sail. Vaughan would not listen, but went on board and ordered his men to follow. One vessel was wrecked at the mouth of the river; the rest, after severe buffeting, came safe, with their owner, to Matinicus.
Being interested in the fisheries, Vaughan was doubly hostile to Louisbourg,—their worst enemy. He found a willing listener in the Governor, William Shirley. Shirley was an English barrister who had come to Massachusetts in 1731 to practise his profession and seek his fortune. After filling various offices with credit, he was made governor of the province in 1741, and had discharged his duties with both tact and talent. He was able, sanguine, and a sincere well-wisher to the province, though gnawed by an insatiable hunger for distinction. He thought himself a born strategist, and was possessed by a propensity for contriving military operations, which finally cost him dear. Vaughan, who knew something of Louisbourg, told him that in winter the snow-drifts were often banked so high against the rampart that it could be mounted readily, if the assailants could but time their arrival at the right moment. This was not easy, as that rocky and tempestuous coast was often made inaccessible by fogs and surf; Shirley therefore preferred a plan of his own contriving. But nothing could be done without first persuading his Assembly to consent.
On the 9th of January the General Court of Massachusetts—a convention of grave city merchants and solemn rustics from the country villages—was astonished by a message from the Governor to the effect that he had a communication to make, so critical that he wished the whole body to swear secrecy. The request was novel, but being then on good terms with Shirley, the Representatives consented, and took the oath. Then, to their amazement, the Governor invited them to undertake forthwith the reduction of Louisbourg. The idea of an attack on that redoubtable fortress was not new. Since the autumn, proposals had been heard to petition the British ministry to make the attempt, under a promise that the colonies would give their best aid. But that Massachusetts should venture it alone, or with such doubtful help as her neighbors might give, at her own charge and risk, though already insolvent, without the approval or consent of the ministry, and without experienced officers or trained soldiers, was a startling suggestion to the sober-minded legislators of the General Court. They listened, however, with respect to the Governor's reasons, and appointed a committee of the two houses to consider them. The committee deliberated for several days, and then made a report adverse to the plan, as was also the vote of the Court.
Meanwhile, in spite of the oath, the secret had escaped. It is said that a country member, more pious than discreet, prayed so loud and fervently, at his lodgings, for light to guide him on the momentous question, that his words were overheard, and the mystery of the closed doors was revealed. The news flew through the town, and soon spread through all the province.
After his defeat in the Assembly, Shirley returned, vexed and disappointed, to his house in Roxbury. A few days later, James Gibson, a Boston merchant, says that he saw him "walking slowly down King Street, with his head bowed down, as if in a deep study." "He entered my counting-room," pursues the merchant, "and abruptly said, 'Gibson, do you feel like giving up the expedition to Louisbourg?'" Gibson replied that he wished the House would reconsider their vote. "You are the very man I want!" exclaimed the Governor. [Footnote: Gibson, Journal of the Siege of Louisbourg.] They then drew up a petition for reconsideration, which Gibson signed, promising to get also the signatures of merchants, not only of Boston, but of Salem, Marblehead, and other towns along the coast. In this he was completely successful, as all New England merchants looked on Louisbourg as an arch-enemy.
The petition was presented, and the question came again before the Assembly. There had been much intercourse between Boston and Louisbourg, which had largely depended on New England for provisions. [Footnote: Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg.] The captured militia-men of Canseau, who, after some delay, had been sent to Boston, according to the terms of surrender, had used their opportunities to the utmost, and could give Shirley much information concerning the fortress. It was reported that the garrison was mutinous, and that provisions were fallen short, so that the place could not hold out without supplies from France. These, however, could be cut off only by blockading the harbor with a stronger naval force than all the colonies together could supply. The Assembly had before reached the reasonable conclusion that the capture of Louisbourg was beyond the strength of Massachusetts, and that the only course was to ask the help of the mother-country. [Footnote: Report of Council, 12 Jan. 1745.]
The reports of mutiny, it was urged, could not be depended on; raw militia in the open field were no match for disciplined troops behind ramparts; the expense would be enormous, and the credit of the province, already sunk low, would collapse under it; we should fail, and instead of sympathy, get nothing but ridicule. Such were the arguments of the opposition, to which there was little to answer, except that if Massachusetts waited for help from England, Louisbourg would be reinforced and the golden opportunity lost. The impetuous and irrepressible Vaughan put forth all his energy; the plan was carried by a single vote. And even this result was said to be due to the accident of a member in opposition falling and breaking a leg as he was hastening to the House.
The die was cast, and now doubt and hesitation vanished. All alike set themselves to push on the work. Shirley wrote to all the colonies, as far south as Pennsylvania, to ask for co-operation. All excused themselves except Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, and the whole burden fell on the four New England colonies. These, and Massachusetts above all, blazed with pious zeal; for as the enterprise was directed against Roman Catholics, it was supposed in a peculiar manner to commend itself to Heaven. There were prayers without ceasing in churches and families, and all was ardor, energy, and confidence; while the other colonies looked on with distrust, dashed with derision. When Benjamin Franklin, in Philadelphia, heard what was afoot, he wrote to his brother in Boston, "Fortified towns are hard nuts to crack, and your teeth are not accustomed to it; but some seem to think that forts are as easy taken as snuff." [Footnote: Sparks, Works of Franklin, VII. 16.] It has been said of Franklin that while he represented some of the New England qualities, he had no part in that enthusiasm of which our own time saw a crowning example when the cannon opened at Fort Sumter, and which pushes to its end without reckoning chances, counting costs, or heeding the scoffs of ill-wishers.
The prevailing hope and faith were, it is true, born largely of ignorance, aided by the contagious zeal of those who first broached the project; for as usual in such cases, a few individuals supplied the initiate force of the enterprise. Vaughan the indefatigable rode express to Portsmouth with a letter from Shirley to Benning Wentworth, governor of New Hampshire. That pompous and self-important personage admired the Massachusetts Governor, who far surpassed him in talents and acquirements, and who at the same time knew how to soothe his vanity. Wentworth was ready to do his part, but his province had no money, and the King had ordered him to permit the issue of no more paper currency. The same prohibition had been laid upon Shirley; but he, with sagacious forecast, had persuaded his masters to relent so far as to permit the issue of £50,000 in what were called bills of credit to meet any pressing exigency of war. He told this to Wentworth, and succeeded in convincing him that his province might stretch her credit like Massachusetts, in case of similar military need. New Hampshire was thus enabled to raise a regiment of five hundred men out of her scanty population, with the condition that a hundred and fifty of them should be paid and fed by Massachusetts. [Footnote: Correspondence of Shirley and Wentworth, in Belknap Papers, Provincial Papers of New Hampshire, V.]
Shirley was less fortunate in Rhode Island. The Governor of that little colony called Massachusetts "our avowed enemy, always trying to defame us." [Footnote: Governor Wanton to the Agent of Rhode Island, 20 Dec. 1745, in Colony Records of Rhode Island, V.] There was a grudge between the neighbors, due partly to notorious ill-treatment by the Massachusetts Puritans of Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, and partly to one of those boundary disputes which often produced ill-blood among the colonies. The Representatives of Rhode Island, forgetting past differences, voted to raise a hundred and fifty men for the expedition, till, learning that the project was neither ordered nor approved by the Home Government, they prudently reconsidered their action. They voted, however, that the colony sloop "Tartar," carrying fourteen cannon and twelve swivels, should be equipped and manned for the service, and that the Governor should be instructed to find and commission a captain and a lieutenant to command her. [Footnote: Colony Records of Rhode Island, V. (Feb. 1745).]
Connecticut promised five hundred and sixteen men and officers, on condition that Roger Wolcott, their commander, should have the second rank in the expedition. Shirley accordingly commissioned him as major-general. As Massachusetts was to supply above three thousand men, or more than three quarters of the whole force, she had a natural right to name a Commander-in-chief.
It was not easy to choose one. The colony had been at peace for twenty years, and except some grizzled Indian fighters of the last war, and some survivors of the Carthagena expedition, nobody had seen service. Few knew well what a fortress was, and nobody knew how to attack one. Courage, energy, good sense, and popularity were the best qualities to be hoped for in the leader. Popularity was indispensable, for the soldiers were all to be volunteers, and they would not enlist under a commander whom they did not like. Shirley's choice was William Pepperrell, a merchant of Kittery. Knowing that Benning Wentworth thought himself the man for the place, he made an effort to placate him, and wrote that he would gladly have given him the chief command, but for his gouty legs. Wentworth took fire at the suggestion, forgot his gout, and declared himself ready to serve his country and assume the burden of command. The position was awkward, and Shirley was forced to reply, "On communicating your offer to two or three gentlemen in whose judgment I most confide, I found them clearly of opinion that any alteration of the present command would be attended with great risk, both with respect to our Assembly and the soldiers being entirely disgusted." [Footnote: Shirley to Wentworth, 16 Feb. 1745.]
The painter Smibert has left us a portrait of Pepperrell,—a good bourgeois face, not without dignity, though with no suggestion of the soldier. His spacious house at Kittery Point still stands, sound and firm, though curtailed in some of its proportions. Not far distant is another noted relic of colonial times, the not less spacious mansion built by the disappointed Wentworth at Little Harbor. I write these lines at a window of this curious old house, and before me spreads the scene familiar to Pepperrell from childhood. Here the river Piscataqua widens to join the sea, holding in its gaping mouth the large island of Newcastle, with attendant groups of islets and island rocks, battered with the rack of ages, studded with dwarf savins, or half clad with patches of whortleberry bushes, sumac, and the shining wax-myrtle, green in summer, red with the touch of October. The flood tide pours strong and full around them, only to ebb away and lay bare a desolation of rocks and stones buried in a shock of brown drenched seaweed, broad tracts of glistening mud, sandbanks black with mussel-beds, and half-submerged meadows of eel-grass, with myriads of minute shellfish clinging to its long lank tresses. Beyond all these lies the main, or northern channel, more than deep enough, even when the tide is out, to float a line-of-battle-ship. On its farther bank stands the old house of the Pepperrells, wearing even now an air of dingy respectability. Looking through its small, quaint window-panes, one could see across the water the rude dwellings of fishermen along the shore of Newcastle, and the neglected earthwork called Fort William and Mary, that feebly guarded the river's mouth. In front, the Piscataqua, curving southward, widened to meet the Atlantic between rocky headlands and foaming reefs, and in dim distance the Isles of Shoals seemed floating on the pale gray sea.
Behind the Pepperrell house was a garden, probably more useful than ornamental, and at the foot of it were the owner's wharves, with storehouses for salt-fish, naval stores, and imported goods for the country trade.
Pepperrell was the son of a Welshman [Footnote: "A native of Ravistock Parish, in Wales" Parsons, Life of Pepperrell. Mrs. Adelaide Cilley Waldron, a descendant of Pepperrell, assures me, however, that his father, the emigrant, came, not from Wales, but from Devonshire.] who migrated in early life to the Isles of Shoals, and thence to Kittery, where by trade, ship-building, and the fisheries, he made a fortune, most of which he left to his son William. The young Pepperrell learned what little was taught at the village school, supplemented by a private tutor, whose instructions, however, did not perfect him in English grammar. In the eyes of his self-made father, education was valuable only so far as it could make a successful trader; and on this point he had reason to be satisfied, as his son passed for many years as the chief merchant in New England. He dealt in ships, timber, naval stores, fish, and miscellaneous goods brought from England; and he also greatly prospered by successful land purchases, becoming owner of the greater part of the growing towns of Saco and Scarborough. When scarcely twenty-one, he was made justice of the peace, on which he ordered from London what his biographer calls a law library, consisting of a law dictionary, Danvers' "Abridgment of the Common Law," the "Complete Solicitor," and several other books. In law as in war, his best qualities were good sense and good will. About the time when he was made a justice, he was commissioned captain of militia, then major, then lieutenant-colonel, and at last colonel, commanding all the militia of Maine. The town of Kittery chose him to represent her in the General Court, Maine being then a part of Massachusetts. Finally, he was made a member of the Governor's Council,—a post which he held for thirty-two years, during eighteen of which he was president of the board.
These civil dignities served him as educators better than tutor or village school; for they brought him into close contact with the chief men of the province; and in the Massachusetts of that time, so different from our own, the best education and breeding were found in the official class. At once a provincial magnate and the great man of a small rustic village, his manners are said to have answered to both positions,—certainly they were such as to make him popular. But whatever he became as a man, he learned nothing to fit him to command an army and lay siege to Louisbourg. Perhaps he felt this, and thought, with the Governor of Rhode Island, that "the attempt to reduce that prodigiously strong town was too much for New England, which had not one officer of experience, nor even an engineer." [Footnote: Governor Wanton to the Agent of Rhode Island in London, 20 Dec. 1745.] Moreover, he was unwilling to leave his wife, children, and business. He was of a religious turn of mind, and partial to the clergy, who, on their part, held him in high favor. One of them, the famous preacher, George Whitefield, was a guest at his house when he heard that Shirley had appointed him to command the expedition against Louisbourg. Whitefield had been the leading spirit in the recent religious fermentation called the Great Awakening, which, though it produced bitter quarrels among the ministers, besides other undesirable results, was imagined by many to make for righteousness. So thought the Reverend Thomas Prince, who mourned over the subsiding delirium of his flock as a sign of back-sliding. "The heavenly shower was over," he sadly exclaims; "from fighting the devil they must turn to fighting the French." Pepperrell, always inclined to the clergy, and now in great perplexity and doubt, asked his guest Whitefield whether or not he had better accept the command. Whitefield gave him cold comfort, told him that the enterprise was not very promising, and that if he undertook it, he must do so "with a single eye," prepared for obloquy if he failed, and envy if he succeeded. [Footnote: Parsons, Life of Pepperrell, 51.]
Henry Sherburn, commissary of the New Hampshire regiment, begged Whitefield to furnish a motto for the flag. The preacher, who, zealot as he was, seemed unwilling to mix himself with so madcap a business, hesitated at first, but at length consented, and suggested the words, Nil desperandum Christo duce, which, being adopted, gave the enterprise the air of a crusade. It had, in fact, something of the character of one. The cause was imagined to be the cause of Heaven, crowned with celestial benediction. It had the fervent support of the ministers, not only by prayers and sermons, but, in one case, by counsels wholly temporal. A certain pastor, much esteemed for benevolence, proposed to Pepperrell, who had at last accepted the command, a plan, unknown to Vauban, for confounding the devices of the enemy. He advised that two trustworthy persons should cautiously walk together along the front of the French ramparts under cover of night, one of them carrying a mallet, with which he was to hammer the ground at short intervals. The French sentinels, it seems to have been supposed, on hearing this mysterious thumping, would be so bewildered as to give no alarm. While one of the two partners was thus employed, the other was to lay his ear to the ground, which, as the adviser thought, would return a hollow sound if the artful foe had dug a mine under it; and whenever such secret danger was detected, a mark was to be set on the spot, to warn off the soldiers. [Footnote: Belknap, Hist. New Hampshire, II. 208.]
Equally zealous, after another fashion, was the Reverend Samuel Moody, popularly known as Father Moody, or Parson Moody, minister of York and senior chaplain of the expedition. Though about seventy years old, he was amazingly tough and sturdy. He still lives in the traditions of York as the spiritual despot of the settlement and the uncompromising guardian of its manners and doctrine, predominating over it like a rough little village pope. The comparison would have kindled his burning wrath, for he abhorred the Holy Father as an embodied Antichrist. Many are the stories told of him by the descendants of those who lived under his rod, and sometimes felt its weight; for he was known to have corrected offending parishioners with his cane. [Footnote: Tradition told me at York by Mr. N. Marshall.] When some one of his flock, nettled by his strictures from the pulpit, walked in dudgeon towards the church door, Moody would shout after him, "Come back, you graceless sinner, come back!" or if any ventured to the alehouse of a Saturday night, the strenuous pastor would go in after them, collar them, drag them out, and send them home with rousing admonition. [Footnote: Lecture of Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted by Cabot, Memoir of Emerson, I. 10. ] Few dared gainsay him, by reason both of his irritable temper and of the thick-skinned insensibility that encased him like armor of proof. And while his pachydermatous nature made him invulnerable as a rhinoceros, he had at the same time a rough and ready humor that supplied keen weapons for the warfare of words and made him a formidable antagonist. This commended him to the rude borderers, who also relished the sulphurous theology of their spiritual dictator, just as they liked the raw and fiery liquors that would have scorched more susceptible stomachs. What they did not like was the pitiless length of his prayers, which sometimes kept them afoot above two hours shivering in the polar cold of the unheated meeting-house, and which were followed by sermons of equal endurance; for the old man's lungs were of brass, and his nerves of hammered iron. Some of the sufferers ventured to remonstrate; but this only exasperated him, till one parishioner, more worldly wise than the rest, accompanied his modest petition for mercy with the gift of a barrel of cider, after which the Parson's ministrations were perceptibly less exhausting than before. He had an irrepressible conscience and a highly aggressive sense of duty, which made him an intolerable meddler in the affairs of other people, and which, joined to an underlying kindness of heart, made him so indiscreet in his charities that his wife and children were often driven to vain protest against the excesses of his almsgiving. The old Puritan fanaticism was rampant in him; and when he sailed for Louisbourg, he took with him an axe, intended, as he said, to hew down the altars of Antichrist and demolish his idols. [Footnote: Moody found sympathizers in his iconoclastic zeal. Deacon John Gray of Biddeford wrote to Pepperrell: "Oh that I could be with you and dear Parson Moody in that church [at Louisbourg] to destroy the images there set up, and hear the true Gospel of our Lord and Saviour there preached!"]
Shirley's choice of a commander was perhaps the best that could have been made; for Pepperrell joined to an unusual popularity as little military incompetency as anybody else who could be had. Popularity, we have seen, was indispensable, and even company officers were appointed with an eye to it. Many of these were well-known men in rustic neighborhoods, who had raised companies in the hope of being commissioned to command them. Others were militia officers recruiting under orders of the Governor. Thus, John Storer, major in the Maine militia, raised in a single day, it is said, a company of sixty-one, the eldest being sixty years old, and the youngest sixteen. [Footnote: Bourne, Hist, of Wells and Kennebunk, 371.] They formed about a quarter of the fencible population of the town of Wells, one of the most exposed places on the border. Volunteers offered themselves readily everywhere; though the pay was meagre, especially in Maine and Massachusetts, where in the new provincial currency it was twenty-five shillings a month,—then equal to fourteen shillings sterling, or less than sixpence a day, [Footnote: Gibson, Journal; Records of Rhode Island, V. Governor Wanton, of that province, says, with complacency, that the pay of Rhode Island was twice that of Massachusetts.] the soldier furnishing his own clothing and bringing his own gun. A full third of the Massachusetts contingent, or more than a thousand men, are reported to have come from the hardy population of Maine, whose entire fighting force, as shown by the muster-rolls, was then but 2,855. [Footnote: Parsons, Life of Pepperrell, 54.] Perhaps there was not one officer among them whose experience of war extended beyond a drill on muster day and the sham fight that closed the performance, when it generally happened that the rustic warriors were treated with rum at the charge of their captain, to put them in good humor, and so induce them to obey the word of command.
As the three provinces contributing soldiers recognized no common authority nearer than the King, Pepperrell received three several commissions as lieutenant-general,—one from the Governor of Massachusetts, and the others from the Governors of Connecticut and New Hampshire; while Wolcott, commander of the Connecticut forces, was commissioned as major-general by both the Governor of his own province and that of Massachusetts. When the levies were complete, it was found that Massachusetts had contributed about 3,300 men, Connecticut 516, and New Hampshire 304 in her own pay, besides 150 paid by her wealthier neighbor. [Footnote: Of the Massachusetts contingent, three hundred men were raised and maintained at the charge of the merchant James Gibson.] Rhode Island had lost faith and disbanded her 150 men; but afterwards raised them again, though too late to take part in the siege.
Each of the four New England colonies had a little navy of its own, consisting of from one to three or four small armed vessels; and as privateering—which was sometimes a euphemism for piracy where Frenchmen and Spaniards were concerned—a favorite occupation, it was possible to extemporize an additional force in case of need. For a naval commander, Shirley chose Captain Edward Tyng, who had signalized himself in the past summer by capturing a French privateer of greater strength than his own. Shirley authorized him to buy for the province the best ship he could find, equip her for fighting, and take command of her. Tyng soon found a brig to his mind, on the stocks nearly ready for launching. She was rapidly fitted for her new destination, converted into a frigate, mounted with 24 guns, and named the "Massachusetts." The rest of the naval force consisted of the ship "CÆsar," of 20 guns; a vessel called the "Shirley," commanded by Captain Rous, and also carrying 20 guns; another, of the kind called a "snow," carrying 16 guns; one sloop of 12 guns, and two of 8 guns each; the "Boston Packet" of 16 guns; two sloops from Connecticut of 16 guns each; a privateer hired in Rhode Island, of 20 guns; the government sloop "Tartar" of the same colony, carrying 14 carriage guns and 12 swivels; and, finally, the sloop of 14 guns which formed the navy of New Hampshire. [Footnote: The list is given by Williamson, II. 227.]
It was said, with apparent reason, that one or two heavy French ships-of-war—and a number of such was expected in the spring—would outmatch the whole colonial squadron, and, after mastering it, would hold all the transports at mercy; so that the troops on shore, having no means of return and no hope of succor, would be forced to surrender or starve. The danger was real and serious, and Shirley felt the necessity of help from a few British ships-of-war. Commodore Peter Warren was then with a small squadron at Antigua. Shirley sent an express boat to him with a letter stating the situation and asking his aid. Warren, who had married an American woman and who owned large tracts of land on the Mohawk, was known to be a warm friend to the provinces. It is clear that he would gladly have complied with Shirley's request; but when he laid the question before a council of officers, they were of one mind that without orders from the Admiralty he would not be justified in supporting an attempt made without the approval of the King. [Footnote: Memoirs of the Principal Transactions of the Last War, 44.]
He therefore saw no choice but to decline. Shirley, fearing that his refusal would be too discouraging, kept it secret from all but Pepperrell and General Wolcott, or, as others say, Brigadier Waldo. He had written to the Duke of Newcastle in the preceding autumn that Acadia and the fisheries were in great danger, and that ships-of-war were needed for their protection. On this, the Duke had written to Warren, ordering him to sail for Boston and concert measures with Shirley "for the annoyance of the enemy, and his Majesty's service in North America." [Footnote: Ibid., 46. Letters of Shirley (Public Record Office).] Newcastle's letter reached Warren only two or three days after he had sent back his refusal of Shirley's request. Thinking himself now sufficiently authorized to give the desired aid, he made all sail for Boston with his three ships, the "Superbe," "Mermaid," and "Launceston." On the way he met a schooner from Boston, and learned from its officers that the expedition had already sailed; on which, detaining the master as a pilot, he changed his course and made directly for Canseau,—the place of rendezvous of the expedition,—and at the same time sent orders by the schooner that any King's ships that might arrive at Boston should immediately join him.
Within seven weeks after Shirley issued his proclamation for volunteers, the preparations were all made, and the unique armament was afloat. Transports, such as they were, could be had in abundance; for the harbors of Salem and Marblehead were full of fishing-vessels thrown out of employment by the war. These were hired and insured by the province for the security of the owners. There was a great dearth of cannon. The few that could be had were too light, the heaviest being of twenty-two-pound calibre. New York lent ten eighteen-pounders to the expedition. But the adventurers looked to the French for their chief supply. A detached work near Louisbourg, called the Grand, or Royal, Battery, was known to be armed with thirty heavy pieces; and these it was proposed to capture and turn against the town,—which, as Hutchinson remarks, was "like selling the skin of the bear before catching him."
It was clear that the expedition must run for luck against risks of all kinds. Those whose hopes were highest, based them on a belief in the special and direct interposition of Providence; others were sanguine through ignorance and provincial self-conceit. As soon as the troops were embarked, Shirley wrote to the ministers of what was going on, telling them that, accidents apart, four thousand New England men would land on Cape Breton in April, and that, even should they fail to capture Louisbourg, he would answer for it that they would lay the town in ruins, retake Canseau, do other good service to his Majesty, and then come safe home. [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 24 March, 1745. The ministry was not wholly unprepared for this announcement, as Shirley had before reported to it the vote of his Assembly consenting to the expedition. Shirley to Newcastle, 1 Feb. 1745.] On receiving this communication, the Government resolved to aid the enterprise if there should yet be time, and accordingly ordered several ships-of-war to sail for Louisbourg.
The sarcastic Dr. Douglas, then living at Boston, writes that the expedition had a lawyer for contriver, a merchant for general, and farmers, fishermen, and mechanics for soldiers. In fact, it had something of the character of broad farce, to which Shirley himself, with all his ability and general good sense, was a chief contributor. He wrote to the Duke of Newcastle that though the officers had no experience and the men no discipline, he would take care to provide against these defects,—meaning that he would give exact directions how to take Louisbourg. Accordingly, he drew up copious instructions to that effect. These seem to have undergone a process of evolution, for several distinct drafts of them are preserved. [Footnote: The first draft of Shirley's instructions for taking Louisbourg is in the large manuscript volume entitled Siege of Louisbourg, in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society. The document is called Memo for the attacking of Louisbourg this Spring by Surprise. After giving minute instructions for every movement, it goes on to say that, as the surprise may possibly fail, it will be necessary to send two small mortars and twelve cannon carrying nine-pound balls, "so as to bombard them and endeavour to make Breaches in their walls and then to Storm them." Shirley was soon to discover the absurdity of trying to breach the walls of Louisbourg with nine-pounders.] The complete and final one is among the Pepperrell Papers, copied entire in the neat, commercial hand of the General himself. [Footnote: It is printed in the first volume of the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Shirley was so well pleased with it that he sent it to the Duke of Newcastle enclosed in his letter of 1 Feb. 1745 (Public Record Office).] It seems to assume that Providence would work a continued miracle, and on every occasion supply the expedition with weather precisely suited to its wants. "It is thought," says this singular document, "that Louisbourg may be surprised if they [the French] have no advice of your coming. To effect it you must time your arrival about nine of the clock in the evening, taking care that the fleet be far enough in the offing to prevent their being seen from the town in the daytime." He then goes on to prescribe how the troops are to land, after dark, at a place called Flat Point Cove, in four divisions, three of which are to march to the back of certain hills a mile and a half west of the town, where two of the three "are to halt and keep a profound silence;" the third continuing its march "under cover of the said hills," till it comes opposite the Grand Battery, which it will attack at a concerted signal; while one of the two divisions behind the hills assaults the west gate, and the other moves up to support the attack.
While this is going on, the soldiers of the fourth division are to march with all speed along the shore till they come to a certain part of the town wall, which they are to scale; then proceed "as fast as can be" to the citadel and "secure the windows of the Governor's apartments." After this follow page after page of complicated details which must have stricken the General with stupefaction. The rocks, surf, fogs, and gales of that tempestuous coast are all left out of the account; and so, too, is the nature of the country, which consists of deep marshes, rocky hills, and hollows choked with evergreen thickets. Yet a series of complex and mutually dependent operations, involving long marches through this rugged and pathless region, was to be accomplished, in the darkness of one April night, by raw soldiers who knew nothing of the country. This rare specimen of amateur soldiering is redeemed in some measure by a postscript in which the Governor sets free the hands of the General, thus: "Notwithstanding the instructions you have received from me, I must leave you to act, upon unforeseen emergencies, according to your best discretion."
On the 24th of March, the fleet, consisting of about ninety transports, escorted by the provincial cruisers, sailed from Nantasket Roads, followed by prayers and benedictions, and also by toasts drunk with cheers, in bumpers of rum punch.
[Footnote: The following letter from John Payne of Boston to Colonel Robert Hale, of the Essex regiment, while it gives no sign of the prevailing religious feeling, illustrates the ardor of the New England people towards their rash adventure:—
BOSTON, Apr. 24, 1745.
Sir,
I hope this will find you at Louisbourg with a Bowl of Punch a Pipe and a P—k of C—ds in your hand and whatever else you desire (I had forgot to mention a Pretty French Madammoselle). We are very Impatiently expecting to hear from you, your Friend Luke has lost several Beaver Hatts already concerning the Expedition, he is so very zealous about it that he has turned Poor Boutier out of his House for saying he believed you would not Take the Place.—Damn his Blood says Luke, let him be an Englishman or a Frenchman and not pretend to be an Englishman when he is a Frenchman in his Heart. If drinking to your success would Take Cape Briton, you must be in Possession of it now, for it's a standing Toast. I think the least thing you Military Gent'n can do is to send us some arrack when you take ye Place to celebrate your Victory and not to force us to do it in Rum Punch or Luke's bad wine or sour cyder.
To Collonell Robert Hale at (or near) Louisbourg.
I am indebted for a copy of this curious letter to Robert Hale Bancroft, Esq., a descendant of Colonel Hale.]
CHAPTER XIX.
1745.
LOUISBOURG BESIEGED.
SETH POMEROY.—THE VOYAGE.—CANSEAU.—UNEXPECTED SUCCORS.—DELAYS. —LOUISBOURG.—THE LANDING.—THE GRAND BATTERY TAKEN.—FRENCH CANNON TURNED ON THE TOWN.—WEAKNESS OF DUCHAMBON.—SUFFERINGS OF THE BESIEGERS.—THEIR HARDIHOOD.—THEIR IRREGULAR PROCEEDINGS.-JOSEPH SHERBURN.—AMATEUR GUNNERY. —CAMP FROLICS.—SECTARIAN ZEAL.—PERPLEXITIES OF PEPPERRELL.
On board one of the transports was Seth Pomeroy, gunsmith at Northampton, and now major of Willard's Massachusetts regiment. He had a turn for soldiering, and fought, ten years later, in the battle of Lake George. Again, twenty years later still, when Northampton was astir with rumors of war from Boston, he borrowed a neighbor's horse, rode a hundred miles, reached Cambridge on the morning of the battle of Bunker Hill, left his borrowed horse out of the way of harm, walked over Charlestown Neck, then swept by the fire of the ships-of-war, and reached the scene of action as the British were forming for the attack. When Israel Putnam, his comrade in the last war, saw from the rebel breastwork the old man striding, gun in hand, up the hill, he shouted, "By God, Pomeroy, you here! A cannon-shot would waken you out of your grave!"
But Pomeroy, with other landsmen, crowded in the small and malodorous fishing-vessels that were made to serve as transports, was now in the gripe of the most unheroic of maladies. "A terrible northeast storm" had fallen upon them, and, he says, "we lay rolling in the seas, with our sails furled, among prodigious waves." "Sick, day and night," writes the miserable gunsmith, "so bad that I have not words to set it forth." [Footnote: Diary of Major Seth Pomeroy. I owe the copy before me to the kindness of his descendant, Theodore Pomeroy, Esq.] The gale increased and the fleet was scattered, there being, as a Massachusetts private soldier writes in his diary, "a very fierse Storm of Snow, som Rain and very Dangerous weather to be so nigh ye Shore as we was; but we escaped the Rocks, and that was all." [Footnote: Diary of a Massachusetts soldier in Captain Richardson's company (Papers of Dr. Belknap).]
On Friday, April 5th, Pomeroy's vessel entered the harbor of Canseau, about fifty miles from Louisbourg. Here was the English fishing-hamlet, the seizure of which by the French had first provoked the expedition. The place now quietly changed hands again. Sixty-eight of the transports lay here at anchor, and the rest came dropping in from day to day, sorely buffeted, but all safe. On Sunday there was a great concourse to hear Parson Moody preach an open-air sermon from the text, "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power," concerning which occasion the soldier diarist observes,—"Several sorts of Busnesses was Going on, Som a Exercising, Som a Hearing Preaching." The attention of Parson Moody's listeners was, in fact, distracted by shouts of command and the awkward drill of squads of homespun soldiers on the adjacent pasture.
Captain Ammi Cutter, with two companies, was ordered to remain at Canseau and defend it from farther vicissitudes; to which end a blockhouse was also built, and mounted with eight small cannon. Some of the armed vessels had been sent to cruise off Louisbourg, which they did to good purpose, and presently brought in six French prizes, with supplies for the fortress. On the other hand, they brought the ominous news that Louisbourg and the adjoining bay were so blocked with ice that landing was impossible. This was a serious misfortune, involving long delay, and perhaps ruin to the expedition, as the expected ships-of-war might arrive meanwhile from France. Indeed, they had already begun to appear. On Thursday, the 18th, heavy cannonading was heard far out at sea, and again on Friday "the cannon," says Pomeroy, "fired at a great rate till about 2 of the clock." It was the provincial cruisers attacking a French frigate, the "RenommÉe," of thirty-six guns. As their united force was too much for her, she kept up a running fight, outsailed them, and escaped after a chase of more than thirty hours, being, as Pomeroy quaintly observes, "a smart ship." She carried despatches to the Governor of Louisbourg, and being unable to deliver them, sailed back for France to report what she had seen.
On Monday, the 22d, a clear, cold, windy day, a large ship, under British colors, sailed into the harbor, and proved to be the frigate "Eltham," escort to the annual mast fleet from New England. On orders from Commander Warren she had left her charge in waiting, and sailed for Canseau to join the expedition, bringing the unexpected and welcome news that Warren himself would soon follow. On the next day, to the delight of all, he appeared in the ship "Superbe," of sixty guns, accompanied by the "Launceston" and the "Mermaid," of forty guns each. Here was force enough to oppose any ships likely to come to the aid of Louisbourg; and Warren, after communicating with Pepperrell, sailed to blockade the port, along with the provincial cruisers, which, by order of Shirley, were placed under his command.
The transports lay at Canseau nearly three weeks, waiting for the ice to break up. The time was passed in drilling the raw soldiers and forming them into divisions of four and six hundred each, according to the directions of Shirley. At length, on Friday, the 27th, they heard that Gabarus Bay was free from ice, and on the morning of the 29th, with the first fair wind, they sailed out of Canseau harbor, expecting to reach Louisbourg at nine in the evening, as prescribed in the Governor's receipt for taking Louisbourg "while the enemy were asleep." [Footnote: The words quoted are used by General Wolcott in his journal.] But a lull in the wind defeated this plan; and after sailing all day, they found themselves becalmed towards night. It was not till the next morning that they could see the town,—no very imposing spectacle, for the buildings, with a few exceptions, were small, and the massive ramparts that belted them round rose to no conspicuous height.
Louisbourg stood on a tongue of land which lay between its harbor and the sea, and the end of which was prolonged eastward by reefs and shoals that partly barred the entrance to the port, leaving a navigable passage not half a mile wide. This passage was commanded by a powerful battery called the "Island Battery," being upon a small rocky island at the west side of the channel, and was also secured by another detached work called the "Grand," or "Royal Battery," which stood on the shore of the harbor, opposite the entrance, and more than a mile from the town. Thus a hostile squadron trying to force its way in would receive a flank fire from the one battery, and a front fire from the other. The strongest line of defence of the fortress was drawn across the base of the tongue of land from the harbor on one side to the sea on the other,—a distance of about twelve hundred yards. The ditch was eighty feet wide and from thirty to thirty-six feet deep; and the rampart, of earth faced with masonry, was about sixty feet thick. The glacis sloped down to a vast marsh, which formed one of the best defences of the place. The fortress, without counting its outworks, had embrasures for one hundred and forty-eight cannon; but the number in position was much less, and is variously stated. Pomeroy says that at the end of the siege a little above ninety were found, with "a great number of swivels;" others say seventy-six. [Footnote: Brown, Cape Breton, 183. Parsons, Life of Pepperrell, 103. An anonymous letter, dated Louisbourg, 4 July, 1745, says that eighty-five cannon and six mortars have been found in the town.] In the Grand and Island batteries there were sixty heavy pieces more. Against this formidable armament the assailants had brought thirty-four cannon and mortars, of much inferior weight, to be used in bombarding the fortress, should they chance to fail of carrying it by surprise, "while the enemy were asleep." [Footnote: Memoirs of the Principal Transactions of the Last War, 40.] Apparently they distrusted the efficacy of their siege-train, though it was far stronger than Shirley had at first thought sufficient; for they brought with them good store of balls of forty-two pounds, to be used in French cannon of that calibre which they expected to capture, their own largest pieces being but twenty-two-pounders.
According to the Habitant de Louisbourg, the garrison consisted of five hundred and sixty regular troops, of whom several companies were Swiss, besides some thirteen or fourteen hundred militia, inhabitants partly of the town, and partly of neighboring settlements. [Footnote: "On fit venir cinq ou six cens Miliciens aux Habitans des environs; ce que, avec ceux de la Ville, pouvoit former treize À quatorze cens hommes."—Lettre d'un Habitant de Louisbourg. This writer says that three or four hundred more might have been had from Niganiche and its neighborhood, if they had been summoned in time. The number of militia just after the siege is set by English reports at 1,310. Parsons, 103.] The regulars were in bad condition. About the preceding Christmas they had broken into mutiny, being discontented with their rations and exasperated with getting no extra pay for work on the fortifications. The affair was so serious that though order was restored, some of the officers lost all confidence in the soldiers; and this distrust proved most unfortunate during the siege. The Governor, Chevalier Duchambon, successor of Duquesnel, who had died in the autumn, was not a man to grapple with a crisis, being deficient in decision of character, if not in capacity.
He expected an attack. "We were informed of the preparations from the first," says the Habitant de Louisburg. Some Indians, who had been to Boston, carried to Canada the news of what was going on there; but it was not believed, and excited no alarm. [Footnote: Shirley to Newcastle, 17 June, 1745, citing letters captured on board a ship from Quebec.] It was not so at Louisbourg, where, says the French writer just quoted, "we lost precious moments in useless deliberations and resolutions no sooner made than broken. Nothing to the purpose was done, so that we were as much taken by surprise as if the enemy had pounced upon us unawares."
It was about the 25th of March [Footnote: 14 March, old style.] when the garrison first saw the provincial cruisers hovering off the mouth of the harbor. They continued to do so at intervals till daybreak of the 30th of April, when the whole fleet of transports appeared standing towards Flat Point, which projects into Gabarus Bay, three miles west of the town. [Footnote: Gabarus Bay, sometimes called "Chapeau Rouge" Bay, is a spacious outer harbor, immediately adjoining Louisbourg.] On this, Duchambon sent Morpain, captain of a privateer, or "corsair," to oppose the landing. He had with him eighty men, and was to be joined by forty more, already on the watch near the supposed point of disembarkation. [Footnote: Bigot au Ministre, 1 Aout, 1745.] At the same time cannon were fired and alarm bells rung in Louisbourg, to call in the militia of the neighborhood.
Pepperrell managed the critical work of landing with creditable skill. The rocks and the surf were more dangerous than the enemy. Several boats, filled with men, rowed towards Flat Point; but on a signal from the flagship "Shirley," rowed back again, Morpain flattering himself that his appearance had frightened them off. Being joined by several other boats, the united party, a hundred men in all, pulled for another landing-place called Fresh-water Cove, or Anse de la CormorandiÈre, two miles farther up Gabarus Bay. Morpain and his party ran to meet them; but the boats were first in the race, and as soon as the New England men got ashore, they rushed upon the French, killed six of them, captured as many more, including an officer named Boularderie, and put the rest to flight, with the loss, on their own side, of two men slightly wounded. [Footnote: Pepperrell to Shirley, 12 May 1745. Shirley to Newcastle, 28 Oct. 1745. Journal of the Siege, attested by Pepperrell and four other chief officers (London, 1746).] Further resistance to the landing was impossible, for a swarm of boats pushed against the rough and stony beach, the men dashing through the surf, till before night about two thousand were on shore. [Footnote: Bigot says six thousand, or two thousand more than the whole New England force, which was constantly overestimated by the French.] The rest, or about two thousand more, landed at their leisure on the next day.
On the 2d of May Vaughan led four hundred men to the hills near the town, and saluted it with three cheers,—somewhat to the discomposure of the French, though they describe the unwelcome visitors as a disorderly crowd. Vaughan's next proceeding pleased them still less. He marched behind the hills, in rear of the Grand Battery, to the northeast arm of the harbor, where there were extensive magazines of naval stores. These his men set on fire, and the pitch, tar, and other combustibles made a prodigious smoke. He was returning, in the morning, with a small party of followers behind the hills, when coming opposite the Grand Battery, and observing it from the ridge, he saw neither flag on the flagstaff, nor smoke from the barrack chimneys. One of his party was a Cape Cod Indian. Vaughan bribed him with a flask of brandy which he had in his pocket,—though, as the clerical historian takes pains to assure us, he never used it himself,—and the Indian, pretending to be drunk, or, as some say, mad, staggered towards the battery to reconnoitre. [Footnote: Belknap, II.] All was quiet. He clambered in at an embrasure, and found the place empty. The rest of the party followed, and one of them, William Tufts, of Medford, a boy of eighteen, climbed the flagstaff, holding in his teeth his red coat, which he made fast at the top, as a substitute for the British flag,—a proceeding that drew upon him a volley of unsuccessful cannon-shot from the town batteries. [Footnote: John Langdon Sibley, in N. E. Hist, and Gen. Register, XXV. 377. The Boston Gazette of 3 June, 1771, has a notice of Tufts's recent death, with an exaggerated account of his exploit, and an appeal for aid to his destitute family.]
Vaughan then sent this hasty note to Pepperrell: "May it please your Honour to be informed that by the grace of God and the courage of 13 men, I entered the Royal Battery about 9 o'clock, and am waiting for a reinforcement and a flag." Soon after, four boats, filled with men, approached from the town to re-occupy the battery,—no doubt in order to save the munitions and stores, and complete the destruction of the cannon. Vaughan and his thirteen men, standing on the open beach, under the fire of the town and the Island Battery, plied the boats with musketry, and kept them from landing, till Lieutenant-Colonel Bradstreet appeared with a reinforcement, on which the French pulled back to Louisbourg. [Footnote: Vaughan's party seems to have consisted in all of sixteen men, three of whom took no part in this affair.]
The English supposed that the French in the battery, when the clouds of smoke drifted over them from the burning storehouses, thought that they were to be attacked in force, and abandoned their post in a panic. This was not the case. "A detachment of the enemy," writes the Habitant de Louisbourg, "advanced to the neighborhood of the Royal Battery." This was Vaughan's four hundred on their way to burn the storehouses. "At once we were all seized with fright," pursues this candid writer, "and on the instant it was proposed to abandon this magnificent battery, which would have been our best defence, if one had known how to use it. Various councils were held, in a tumultuous way. It would be hard to tell the reasons for such a strange proceeding. Not one shot had yet been fired at the battery, which the enemy could not take, except by making regular approaches, as if against the town itself, and by besieging it, so to speak, in form. Some persons remonstrated, but in vain; and so a battery of thirty cannon, which had cost the King immense sums, was abandoned before it was attacked."
Duchambon says that soon after the English landed, he got a letter from Thierry, the captain in command of the Royal Battery, advising that the cannon should be spiked and the works blown up. It was then, according to the Governor, that the council was called, and a unanimous vote passed to follow Thierry's advice, on the ground that the defences of the battery were in bad condition, and that the four hundred men posted there could not stand against three or four thousand. [Footnote: Duchambon au Ministre, 2 Sept. 1745. This is the Governor's official report. "Four hundred men" is perhaps a copyist's error, the actual number in the battery being not above two hundred.] The engineer, Verrier, opposed the blowing up of the works, and they were therefore left untouched. Thierry and his garrison came off in boats, after spiking the cannon in a hasty way, without stopping to knock off the trunnions or burn the carriages. They threw their loose gunpowder into the well, but left behind a good number of cannon cartridges, two hundred and eighty large bombshells, and other ordnance stores, invaluable both to the enemy and to themselves. Brigadier Waldo was sent to occupy the battery with his regiment, and Major Seth Pomeroy, the gunsmith, with twenty soldier-mechanics, was set at drilling out the spiked touch-holes of the cannon. These were twenty-eight forty-two-pounders, and two eighteen-pounders. Several were ready for use the next morning, and immediately opened on the town,—which, writes a soldier in his diary, "damaged the houses and made the women cry." "The enemy," says the Habitant de Louisbourg, "saluted us with our own cannon, and made a terrific fire, smashing everything within range." [Footnote: Waldo to Shirley, 12 May, 1745. Some of the French writers say twenty-eight thirty-six-pounders, while all the English call them forty-twos,—which they must have been, as the forty-two-pound shot brought from Boston fitted them.] [Footnote: Mr. Theodore Roosevelt draws my attention to the fact that cannon were differently rated in the French and English navies of the seventeenth century, and that a French thirty-six carried a ball as large as an English forty-two, or even a little larger.]
The English occupation of the Grand Battery may be called the decisive event of the siege. There seems no doubt that the French could have averted the disaster long enough to make it of little help to the invaders. The water-front of the battery was impregnable. The rear defences consisted of a loopholed wall of masonry, with a ditch ten feet deep and twelve feet wide, and also a covered way and glacis, which General Wolcott describes as unfinished. In this he mistook. They were not unfinished, but had been partly demolished, with a view to reconstruction. The rear wall was flanked by two towers, which, says Duchambon, were demolished; but General Wolcott declares that swivels were still mounted on them, [Footnote: Journal of Major-General Wolcott.] and he adds that "two hundred men might hold the battery against five thousand without cannon." The English landed their cannon near Flat Point; and before they could be turned against the Grand Battery, they must be dragged four miles over hills and rocks, through spongy marshes and jungles of matted evergreens. This would have required a week or more. The alternative was an escalade, in which the undisciplined assailants would no doubt have met a bloody rebuff. Thus this Grand Battery, which, says Wolcott, "is in fact a fort," might at least have been held long enough to save the munitions and stores, and effectually disable the cannon, which supplied the English with the only artillery they had, competent to the work before them. The hasty abandonment of this important post was not Duchambon's only blunder, but it was the worst of them all.
On the night after their landing, the New England men slept in the woods, wet or dry, with or without blankets, as the case might be, and in the morning set themselves to encamping with as much order as they were capable of. A brook ran down from the hills and entered the sea two miles or more from the town. The ground on each side, though rough, was high and dry, and here most of the regiments made their quarters,—Willard's, Moulton's, and Moore's on the east side, and Burr's and Pepperrell's on the west. Those on the east, in some cases, saw fit to extend themselves towards Louisbourg as far as the edge of the intervening marsh; but were soon forced back to a safer position by the cannon-balls of the fortress, which came bowling amongst them. This marsh was that green, flat sponge of mud and moss that stretched from this point to the glacis of Louisbourg.
There was great want of tents, for material to make them was scarce in New England. Old sails were often used instead, being stretched over poles,—perhaps after the fashion of a Sioux teepee. When these could not be had, the men built huts of sods, with roofs of spruce-boughs overlapping like a thatch; for at that early season, bark would not peel from the trees. The landing of guns, munitions, and stores was a formidable task, consuming many days and destroying many boats, as happened again when Amherst landed his cannon at this same place. Large flat boats, brought from Boston, were used for the purpose, and the loads were carried ashore on the heads of the men, wading through ice-cold surf to the waist, after which, having no change of clothing, they slept on the ground through the chill and foggy nights, reckless of future rheumatisms. [Footnote: The author of The Importance and Advantage of Cape Breton says: "When the hardships they were exposed to come to be considered, the behaviour of these men will hardly gain credit. They went ashore wet, had no [dry] clothes to cover them, were exposed in this condition to cold, foggy nights, and yet cheerfully underwent these difficulties for the sake of executing a project they had voluntarily undertaken."]
A worse task was before them. The cannon were to be dragged over the marsh to Green Hill, a spur of the line of rough heights that half encircled the town and harbor. Here the first battery was to be planted; and from this point other guns were to be dragged onward to more advanced stations,—a distance in all of more than two miles, thought by the French to be impassable. So, in fact, it seemed; for at the first attempt, the wheels of the cannon sank to the hubs in mud and moss, then the carriage, and finally the piece itself slowly disappeared. Lieutenant-Colonel Meserve, of the New Hampshire regiment, a ship-builder by trade, presently overcame the difficulty. By his direction sledges of timber were made, sixteen feet long and five feet wide; a cannon was placed on each of these, and it was then dragged over the marsh by a team of two hundred men, harnessed with rope-traces and breast-straps, and wading to the knees. Horses or oxen would have foundered in the mire. The way had often to be changed, as the mossy surface was soon churned into a hopeless slough along the line of march. The work could be done only at night or in thick fog, the men being completely exposed to the cannon of the town. Thirteen years after, when General Amherst besieged Louisbourg again, he dragged his cannon to the same hill over the same marsh; but having at his command, instead of four thousand militiamen, eleven thousand British regulars, with all appliances and means to boot, he made a road, with prodigious labor, through the mire, and protected it from the French shot by an epaulement, or lateral earthwork. [Footnote: See Montcalm and Wolfe, chap. xix.]
Pepperrell writes in ardent words of the cheerfulness of his men "under almost incredible hardships." Shoes and clothing failed, till many were in tatters and many barefooted; [Footnote: Pepperrell to Newcastle, 28 June, 1745.] yet they toiled on with unconquerable spirit, and within four days had planted a battery of six guns on Green Hill, which was about a mile from the King's Bastion of Louisbourg. In another week they had dragged four twenty-two-pound cannon and ten coehorns—gravely called "cowhorns" by the bucolic Pomeroy—six or seven hundred yards farther, and planted them within easy range of the citadel. Two of the cannon burst, and were replaced by four more and a large mortar, which burst in its turn, and Shirley was begged to send another. Meanwhile a battery, chiefly of coehorns, had been planted on a hillock four hundred and forty yards from the West Gate, where it greatly annoyed the French; and on the next night an advanced battery was placed just opposite the same gate, and scarcely two hundred and fifty yards from it. This West Gate, the principal gate of Louisbourg, opened upon the tract of high, firm ground that lay on the left of the besiegers, between the marsh and the harbor, an arm of which here extended westward beyond the town, into what was called the Barachois, a salt pond formed by a projecting spit of sand. On the side of the Barachois farthest from the town was a hillock on which stood the house of an habitant named Martissan. Here, on the 20th of May, a fifth battery was planted, consisting of two of the French forty-two-pounders taken in the Grand Battery, to which three others were afterwards added. Each of these heavy pieces was dragged to its destination by a team of three hundred men over rough and rocky ground swept by the French artillery. This fifth battery, called the Northwest, or Titcomb's, proved most destructive to the fortress. [Footnote: Journal of the Siege, appended to Shirley's report to Newcastle; Duchambon au Ministre, 2 Sept. 1745; Lettre d'un Habitant; Pomeroy, etc.]
All these operations were accomplished with the utmost ardor and energy, but with a scorn of rule and precedent that astonished and bewildered the French. The raw New England men went their own way, laughed at trenches and zigzags, and persisted in trusting their lives to the night and the fog. Several writers say that the English engineer Bastide tried to teach them discretion; but this could hardly be, for Bastide, whose station was Annapolis, did not reach Louisbourg till the 5th of June, when the batteries were finished and the siege was nearly ended. A recent French writer makes the curious assertion that it was one of the ministers, or army chaplains, who took upon him the vain task of instruction in the art of war on this occasion. [Footnote: Ferland, Cours d'Histoire du Canada, II. 477. "L'ennemi ne nous attaquoit point dans les formes, et ne pratiquoit point aucun retranchement pour se couvrir." Habitant de Louisbourg.]
This ignorant and self-satisfied recklessness might have cost the besiegers dear if the French, instead of being perplexed and startled at the novelty of their proceedings, had taken advantage of it; but Duchambon and some of his officers, remembering the mutiny of the past winter, feared to make sorties, lest the soldiers might desert or take part with the enemy. The danger of this appears to have been small. Warren speaks with wonder in his letters of the rarity of desertions, of which there appear to have been but three during the siege,—one being that of a half-idiot, from whom no information could be got. A bolder commander would not have stood idle while his own cannon were planted by the enemy to batter down his walls; and whatever the risks of a sortie, the risks of not making one were greater. "Both troops and militia eagerly demanded it, and I believe it would have succeeded," writes the Intendant, Bigot. [Footnote: Bigot au Ministre, 1 AoÛt, 1745.] The attempt was actually made more than once in a half-hearted way,—notably on the 8th of May, when the French attacked the most advanced battery, and were repulsed, with little loss on either side.
The Habitant de Louisbourg says: "The enemy did not attack us with any regularity, and made no intrenchments to cover themselves." This last is not exact. Not being wholly demented, they made intrenchments, such as they were,—at least at the advanced battery; [Footnote: Diary of Joseph Sherburn, Captain at the Advanced Battery.] as they would otherwise have been swept out of existence, being under the concentred fire of several French batteries, two of which were within the range of a musket shot.
The scarcity of good gunners was one of the chief difficulties of the besiegers. As privateering, and piracy also, against Frenchmen and Spaniards was a favorite pursuit in New England, there were men in Pepperrell's army who knew how to handle cannon; but their number was insufficient, and the General sent a note to Warren, begging that he would lend him a few experienced gunners to teach their trade to the raw hands at the batteries. Three or four were sent, and they found apt pupils.
Pepperrell placed the advanced battery in charge of Captain Joseph [Footnote: He signs his name Jos. Sherburn; but in a list of the officers of the New Hampshire Regiment it appears in full as Joseph.] Sherburn, telling him to enlist as many gunners as he could. On the next day Sherburn reported that he had found six, one of whom seems to have been sent by Warren. With these and a number of raw men he repaired to his perilous station, where "I found," he says, "a very poor intrenchment. Our best shelter from the French fire, which was very hot, was hogsheads filled with earth." He and his men made the West Gate their chief mark; but before they could get a fair sight of it, they were forced to shoot down the fish-flakes, or stages for drying cod, that obstructed the view. Some of their party were soon killed,—Captain Pierce by a cannon-ball, Thomas Ash by a "bumb," and others by musketry. In the night they improved their defences, and mounted on them three more guns, one of eighteen-pound calibre, and the others of forty-two,—French pieces dragged from the Grand Battery, a mile and three quarters round the Barachois.
The cannon could be loaded only under a constant fire of musketry, which the enemy briskly returned. The French practice was excellent. A soldier who in bravado mounted the rampart and stood there for a moment, was shot dead with five bullets. The men on both sides called to each other in scraps of bad French or broken English; while the French drank ironical healths to the New England men, and gave them bantering invitations to breakfast.
Sherburn continues his diary. "Sunday morning. Began our fire with as much fury as possible, and the French returned it as warmly from the Citidale [citadel], West Gate, and North East Battery with Cannon, Mortars, and continual showers of musket balls; but by 11 o'clock we had beat them all from their guns." He goes on to say that at noon his men were forced to stop firing from want of powder, that he went with his gunners to get some, and that while they were gone, somebody, said to be Mr. Vaughan, brought a supply, on which the men loaded the forty-two-pounders in a bungling way, and fired them. One was dismounted, and the other burst; a barrel and a half-barrel of powder blew up, killed two men, and injured two more. Again: "Wednesday. Hot fire on both sides, till the French were beat from all their guns. May 29th went to 2 Gun [Titcomb's] Battery to give the gunners some directions; then returned to my own station, where I spent the rest of the day with pleasure, seeing our Shott Tumble down their walls and Flagg Staff."
The following is the Intendant Bigot's account of the effect of the New England fire: "The enemy established their batteries to such effect that they soon destroyed the greater part of the town, broke the right flank of the King's Bastion, ruined the Dauphin Battery with its spur, and made a breach at the Porte Dauphine [West Gate], the neighboring wall, and the sort of redan adjacent." [Footnote: Bigot au Ministre, 1 AoÛt, 1745.] Duchambon says in addition that the cannon of the right flank of the King's Bastion could not be served, by reason of the continual fire of the enemy, which broke the embrasures to pieces; that when he had them repaired, they were broken to pieces (dÉmantibulÈs) again,—and nobody could keep his ground behind the wall of the quay, which was shot through and through and completely riddled. [Footnote: Duchambon au Ministre, 2 Sept. 1745.] The town was ploughed with cannon-balls, the streets were raked from end to end, nearly all the houses damaged, and the people driven for refuge into the stifling casemates. The results were creditable to novices in gunnery.
The repeated accidents from the bursting of cannon were no doubt largely due to unskilful loading and the practice of double-shotting, to which the over-zealous artillerists are said to have often resorted. [Footnote: "Another forty-two-pound gun burst at the Grand Battery. All the guns are in danger of going the same way, by double-shotting them, unless under better regulation than at present." Waldo to Pepperrell, 20 May, 1745.] [Footnote: Waldo had written four days before: "Captain Hale, of my regiment, is dangerously hurt by the bursting of another gun. He was our mainstay for gunnery since Captain Rhodes's misfortune" (also caused by the bursting of a cannon). Waldo to Pepperrell, 16 May, 1745.]
It is said, in proof of the orderly conduct of the men, that not one of them was punished during all the siege; but this shows the mild and conciliating character of the General quite as much as any peculiar merit of the soldiers. The state of things in and about the camp was compared by the caustic Dr. Douglas to "a Cambridge Commencement," which academic festival was then attended by much rough frolic and boisterous horseplay among the disorderly crowds, white and black, bond and free, who swarmed among the booths on Cambridge Common. The careful and scrupulous Belknap, who knew many who took part in the siege, says: "Those who were on the spot have frequently, in my hearing, laughed at the recital of their own irregularities, and expressed their admiration when they reflected on the almost miraculous preservation of the army from destruction." While the cannon bellowed in the front, frolic and confusion reigned at the camp, where the men raced, wrestled, pitched quoits, fired at marks,—though there was no ammunition to spare,—and ran after the French cannon-balls, which were carried to the batteries, to be returned to those who sent them. Nor were calmer recreations wanting. "Some of our men went a fishing, about 2 miles off," writes Lieutenant Benjamin Cleaves in his diary: "caught 6 Troutts." And, on the same day, "Our men went to catch Lobsters: caught 30." In view of this truant disposition, it is not surprising that the besiegers now and then lost their scalps at the hands of prowling Indians who infested the neighborhood. Yet through all these gambols ran an undertow of enthusiasm, born in brains still fevered from the "Great Awakening." The New England soldier, a growth of sectarian hotbeds, fancied that he was doing the work of God. The army was Israel, and the French were Canaanitish idolaters. Red-hot Calvinism, acting through generations, had modified the transplanted Englishman; and the descendant of the Puritans was never so well pleased as when teaching their duty to other people, whether by pen, voice, or bombshells. The ragged artillerymen, battering the walls of papistical Louisbourg, flattered themselves with the notion that they were champions of gospel truth.
Barefoot and tattered, they toiled on with indomitable pluck and cheerfulness, doing the work which oxen could not do, with no comfort but their daily dram of New England rum, as they plodded through the marsh and over rocks, dragging the ponderous guns through fog and darkness. Their spirit could not save them from the effects of excessive fatigue and exposure. They were ravaged with diarra and fever, till fifteen hundred men were at one time on the sick-list, and at another, Pepperrell reported that of the four thousand only about twenty-one hundred were fit for duty. [Footnote: Pepperrell to Warren, 28 May, 1745.] Nearly all at last recovered, for the weather was unusually good; yet the number fit for service was absurdly small. Pepperrell begged for reinforcements, but got none till the siege was ended.
It was not his nature to rule with a stiff hand,—and this, perhaps, was fortunate. Order and discipline, the sinews of an army, were out of the question; and it remained to do as well as might be without them, keep men and officers in good-humor, and avoid all that could dash their ardor. For this, at least, the merchant-general was well fitted. His popularity had helped to raise the army, and perhaps it helped now to make it efficient. His position was no bed of roses. Worries, small and great, pursued him without end. He made friends of his officers, kept a bountiful table at his tent, and labored to soothe their disputes and jealousies, and satisfy their complaints. So generous were his contributions to the common cause that according to a British officer who speaks highly of his services, he gave to it, in one form or another, £10,000 out of his own pocket. [Footnote: Letter from an Officer of Marines, appended to A particular Account of the Taking of Cape Breton (London, 1745).]
His letter-books reveal a swarm of petty annoyances, which may have tried his strength and patience as much as more serious cares. The soldiers complained that they were left without clothing, shoes, or rum; and when he implored the Committee of War to send them, Osborne, the chairman, replied with explanations why it could not be done. Letters came from wives and fathers entreating that husbands and sons who had gone to the war should be sent back. At the end of the siege a captain "humble begs leave for to go home" because he lives in a very dangerous country, and his wife and children are "in a declining way" without him. Then two entire companies raised on the frontier offered the same petition on similar grounds. Sometimes Pepperrell was beset with prayers for favors and promotion; sometimes with complaints from one corps or another that an undue share of work had been imposed on it. One Morris, of Cambridge, writes a moving petition that his slave "Cuffee," who had joined the army, should be restored to him, his lawful master. One John Alford sends the General a number of copies of the Reverend Mr. Prentice's late sermon, for distribution, assuring him that "it will please your whole army of volunteers, as he has shown them the way to gain by their gallantry the hearts and affections of the Ladys." The end of the siege brought countless letters of congratulation, which, whether lay or clerical, never failed to remind him, in set phrases, that he was but an instrument in the hands of Providence.
One of his most persistent correspondents was his son-in-law, Nathaniel Sparhawk, a thrifty merchant, with a constant eye to business, who generally began his long-winded epistles with a bulletin concerning the health of "Mother Pepperrell," and rarely ended them without charging his father-in-law with some commission, such as buying for him the cargo of a French prize, if he could get it cheap. Or thus: "If you would procure for me a hogshead of the best Clarett, and a hogshead of the best white wine, at a reasonable rate, it would be very grateful to me." After pestering him with a few other commissions, he tells him that "Andrew and Bettsy [children of Pepperrell] send their proper compliments," and signs himself, with the starched flourish of provincial breeding, "With all possible Respect, Honoured Sir, Your Obedient Son and Servant." [Footnote: Sparhawk to Pepperrell,-June, 1745. This is but one of many letters from Sparhawk.] Pepperrell was much annoyed by the conduct of the masters of the transports, of whom he wrote: "The unaccountable irregular behaviour of these fellows is the greatest fatigue I meet with;" but it may be doubted whether his son-in-law did not prove an equally efficient persecutor.
