rv^ .^^ IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 'MM.' ^/ V 4?. 1.0 I.I 1^ 121 |2.5 ■50 ■^" ■■■ 1^ IM |!!||2.2 I. 11.25 11.4 ^i^ 'm /2 ^ /: '/ a ^V^*/^ '-U^- "^^%>!^. wn by Vauban and other great military engineers, and were, in spite of their faulty construction, the most complete example of a for- tified town in America. At the time we are now considering, the Peace of 1 71 3, the population of these colonies had reached 375*750 whites and 58,850 blacks, and was rapidly in- creasing. Their tradt amounted to twelve and a half millions annually. On the other hand, the population of Canada did not exceed 25,000, and the only towns — Montreal and Quebec — had not half the population of Boston. But in spite of this disproportion of numbers, WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? when George II. ascended the throne, there were already French forts and missions on many important points on the Great Lakes, on the Mississippi River, and even at Mobile, on the Gulf of Mexico, which were to be used to confine the English between the Atlantic and the Alle- ghanies. Like its predecessor, the Peace of Utrecht was but a truce, and the match was ready to set on fire both con- tinents, it was applied in 1744, when, in the War of the Austrian Succession, — called by us King George's War, from George II., — the English supported Maria Theresa against France and Prussia. In it George II. defeated the French at Dettingen, while Marshal Saxe worsted the English at Fontenoy. To us it is important as the occasion of the expedition which captured the newly built fortress of Louisburg. This stronghold was seen to be a standing menace to all the northern British colonies. As the only French naval station on the continent, it commanded the chief entrance to Canada, and threatened to ruin the fish- eries, which were nearly as vital to New England as was the fur trade to France. While Cape Breton was French, the nominal possession of Acadia was of little security to the English. In spite of their oath of allegiance, it was evident that the Acadians would be both useless and dan- gerous as long as the French flag floated over Louisburg. The danger vas imminent. Even before the European declaration of war, an armament, fitted out at Louisburg, had surprised the English garrison at Canseau, breaking up the fishery. Annapolis, the capital of Acadia, or Nova Scotia, had been threatened by the Indians, but was successfully defended. The English prisoners who had been sent from Canseau to Louisburg had remained there during the winter, and the accounts they brought back of its condition gave Governor Shirley reason to believe that if an expedition was speedily sent against it. 8 WHY v;as louisbukg twice besieged? ! ~i ( \ ) L I I there would be a fair chance of success. These pris- oners represented that not only was the garrison small, but that it was discontented, and that a mutiny had ac- tually broken out, on account of the soldiers not having received certain additions to their pay for work upon the fortifications. The ramparts were said to be defective in more than one place, and gales and other causes had de- layed the arrival of ships with provisions and reenforce- ments. When Governor Shirley laid before the General Court the plan — which it is possible had been suggested to him by one of the several men whose names are attached to it — for striking a blow at the French which would give the English control of the whole coast from Cape Sable to the entrance of the St. Lawrence, it was re- jected as foolish and chimerical ; but on presentation of a petition, signed by New England merchants, complain- ing of the losses they had received from French priva- teers which found refuge at Louisburg, the project was carried by one majority. Shirley then called upon the mother country and the other colonies for cooperation. Everywhere but in New England the scheme was re- garded as quixotic. As the result of his application it was a New England expedition which attacked Louis- burg, aided by ten pieces of small ordnance and a quantity of powder and provisions contributed by New York. The forces against the French consisted of 4,070 men, of whom Massachusetts contributed 3,250 (one-third of them from Maine) ; New Hampshire, 304 ; Connecticut, 516. William Pepperell, who was placed in command, had become wealthy in commerce, and had held some important civil positions. Without military experience, he was a man of excellent judgment, undoubted courage, and a knowledge of the art of managing men. The old . WHY WAS I.OUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? Puritan spirit of the colonies asserted itself at this crisis. In the churches and on the domestic hearths prayers were ofifered that Romanism and its superstfiions might be crushed out, A new crusade was pr''ached by the clergy, and the great Whitfield placec^ , oon its banner the motto, Nil desperandum, Christo o The ships which the Duke of Newcastle sent, under command of Commodore Warren, on receipt of Gov- ernor Shirley's letter, met the Americans at Canseau. They materially contributed to the success of the expe- dition by capturing the French vessel on her annual trip to Louisburg with supplies, and manning her with English seamen. With this cooperation, on the 17th of June, 1745, after a siege of forty-seven days, the keys of the fortress were handed to General Pepperell, and the English flag was hoisted on the walls of Louisburg. The reception in Boston of the news of its capture was marked by the ringing of bells, the discharge of cannon, by bonfires and illuminations, and a public thanksgiving ordered by the governor. The rejoicings in Boston were echoed throughout New England, in New York, and Philadelphia. Stores for the garrison and materials for the reconstruction of the damaged works were or- dered by the General Court, New York contributed for this purpose ^5,000; New Jersey, ;^2,ooo; Pennsyl- vania, ^4,000. When Pepperell reached Boston he was met by the governor and escorted to the town-house, where he received a vote of thanks, to which he made a charac- teristically Ddest reply. His return to his home in Maine, through the large towns of Essex County, re- sembled the triumphal progress of a Roman conqueror. Equal enthusiasm was shown in London, on arrival of the news of what one of her historians calls " the great event of the War of the Austrian Succession." The guns lO WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? were fired in the Park and at the Tower. In return for a conquest which saved Nova Scotia to the British crown, Pepperell was made a baronet, — the first dis- tinction of the kind ever given to a colonist, — and Warren a rear-admiral. What \.as the disgust of the colonies when England, by the Peace of Aix-Ja-Cha- pelle, restored Louisburg, her only conquest during the war, to the Fren ,h ! The War in Europe, from 1745, had drifted on, although its original purpose had disappeared. Both parties to it were financially exhausted, and were happy to close the conflict by mutually restoring their conquests in all parts of the world. In October, 1748, the Peace was signed by which Louisburg, won for England by the farmers and fishermen of New England, was given back to France. It is said that when the preliminaries of peace were under discussion, Louis XV. had demanded the restitution of Louisburg, and George II. is said to have replied that it was not his to give, having been cap- tured by the people of Boston ; but his sense of justice was forced to yield to diplomatic necessity, Louisburg being the indispensable price of peace. The reasons for so unfortunate an act are matters of conjecture. It must be remembered that parliamentary government and ministerial responsibility, as we now un- derstand them, did not then exist. The government was not responsible to the people, nor to the House of Com- mons, but to the king. Nor, if the subject had been matter for debate, was there any system of parliamentary reporting. It is said, however, that conflicting represen- tations were made to the British ministry respecting the value of Louisburg to the English. Shirley indeed told them that it was the key to both the French and English northern colonies, and that if • the French should be able to hold it, *' it would some time or other put them I ; I . I : WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? II upon disputing the mastery of the whole continent with the British crown." Warren agreed with Pepperell in wishing to have it established as a civil government and a free port ; but Warren's successor, Commodore Knowles, thought the fortress not worth th« trouble of keeping up. The fortifications, he said, were badly designed and worse executed, and the climate was frightful. It was at the mercy of a hostile fleet, and required naval defence. But Knowles, who is described as " a testy person," had an old prejudice against the colonies, and had spoken of their troops as " banditti." He had impressed mechanics in Boston to recruit his ships, whom he had given up, after a mob had attacked his officers. Other reasons than the opinion of Commodore Knowles may have contributed to a result so mortifying to the pride of our ancestors. The conquest of Louisburg, says Palfrey, had been made at their own motion, at their own risk, and at a cost, for the moment, at least, most embarrassing to them. That they had made it for their needful security, and that they had contributed by it to the glory and greatness of the empire, seemed to them alike reasons why it should not be relinquished. How far a jealousy of their growing power, he adds, manifested by so conspicuous a demonstration, may have operated to induce the English ministry to this morti- fying measure, cannot be positively affirmed. But an opinion was entertained in some quarters that in the British counsels the vicinity of French settlements and forces was not overlooked as a means of keeping the col- onies in their allegiance to Great Britain, through a sense of need of her aid for their security. In fact, this was suggested to the British Prime Minister by Governor Shirley, who wrote that if Louisburg should be strength- ened the crown would have an absolute hold of the col- onies, if ever there should come a time when they should 12 WIIV WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? 1 I I ^1" . i i grow restive, and disposed to shake off their dependency upon their mother country, the possibility of which, he added, " seems to me some centuries further off than it does to some gentlemen at home." While the surrender of Louisburg was distasteful in the highest degree to the colonies to which its capture was due, Lord Mahon, in his History of England, asserts that, notwithstanding the exhausted state of the British finances and the depression wrought by the disasters in the Netherlands, the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la- Chapelle — especially the restitution of Cape Breton — were far from popular in England, and he adds that it was clogged with a clause most unwelcome to British pride, that hostages should be given to France for the restitution of Cape Breton, in the person of two noble- men of distinguished rank, who were selected for this purpose and sent to Paris. But if the surrender of Louisburg was a bitter pill to the colonies, it was of immense benefit to Massachusetts, for it was as a direct consequence of this act that our cur- rency was reformed and placed upon a specie basis. The evil of an irredeemable paper currency had weighed upon the colony during nearly half of its existence, beginning with the issue of bills of credit to pay for the disastrous expedition against Canada in 1690. Follow- ing wars had caused further emission of bills payable, first at two years, then at three, then at longer periods. In the meantime, the value of public securities fell, and specie, for which the paper money was a cheap substitute, disappeared. Different remedies were applied, but in vain ; while the distress which they were intended to relieve was becoming intolerable. Upon the urgent rep- resentation of Governor Shirley, and in order to quiet the growing discontent of the colony, the entire sum ex- pended by Massachusetts on the expedition to Louis- WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? 13 burg, equal to ;^i 83,650 as exchange then stood with London, was allowed by the English government. It came over, says Palfrey, in solid coin, " and the people of Boston, little used to the sight of money, saw seven- teen trucks dragged up King street to the treasury ofifices, laden with two hundred and seventeen chests full of Spanish dollars, and ten trucks bearing one hundred casks of coined copper." Before the arrival of the money its use had been provided for. Thomas Hutchinson, later Governor, then Speaker of the House, having opposed all the schemes hitherto advocated, urged the devotion of the money to the payment of the provincial bills of the old tenor, more than two millions of which were in circulation. After much opposition his views prevailed ; and it was further enacted that silver at the rate of 6.y. %d. the ounce, and Spanish dollars at 6s. each, should be the legal tender of the province. The money, when it arrived, took the place of the outstanding notes, and for twenty-five years Massachusetts enjoyed a specie currency. It is not surprising that Hutchinson should begin the third volume of his " History of Massachusetts " by saying that the people of this province were never in a more easy and happy situation than at the close of the war with France ; and he recounts, with no personal allusion, the establishment of the currency on a specie basis, the advantage whereof, he adds, was evident, and excited the envy of the other colonies, in each of which paper was the principal medium. * When the English understood the mistake they had made in restoring Cape Breton to France, they endeav- ored to retrieve it, as far as possible, and, at the sugges- tion of Shirley and others, set to work to bring an English population into Nova Scotia, and to make it a source of strength instead of weakness to the New Eng- 14 WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? land communities. In 1749 the city of Halifax was founded on the west side of the harbor of Chebuctou, a harbor remarkable for its spaciousness and freedom from ice in the winter ; and thousands of Acadians, who had supplied Louisburg with provisions and helped to build the French forts in Nova Scotia, were deported and scattered among the English colonies. We come now to the last and most momentous of these inter-colon 'il struggles, from which it is not too much to say that America emerged a nation. The con- flict began with us. Its cause was the proposed settle- ment of the English beyond the Ohio, opposed by the French, who constructed forts to connect Canada with Louisiana. When the contending parties stood face to face along this line, the spark struck from their flintlocks lighted the flame of war through the American forests, while across the ocean, England and Prussia stood side by side against Europe. Beg. ^ in shame and disaster on both sides of the Atlantic, with the defeat of Brad- dock, the fall of Oswego, defeat at Fort Edward and Ticonderoga, the Sevei^ Years' War opened with Fred- erick seemingly crushed at Kolin, Port Mahon lost to England, the English disgraced in Hanover. These defeats, the result of incompetence, maladministration, and favoritism, brought England to a despondency with- out parallel in her history, until the cry was heard, " We are no longer a nation," Then the man arose for whom the time called. Will- iam Pitt, "the great commoner," loved by the people, though disliked by the king and hated by the court, was asked to form a ministry. His sublime self-confidence found utterance in the words: "I am sure that I can save this country, and that no one else can ! " — " Eng- land has long been in labor," exclaimed Frederick, " and at last she has brought forth a man ! " WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? IS In the great reorganization which followed, Pitt turned his thoughts towards America. His liberal policy for the colonics was aimed to win their confidence, and thus secure their support. He proposed to procure for them immediate and permanent security against the French and their Indian allies, to encourage and to remunerate their liberality, and to protect their rights. The colo- nies responded to his call. Twenty-eight thousand men, of whom Massachusetts contributed one-fourth, were brought into the field. On the other hand, the presence here of 22,000 regular British troops attested the hearty cooperation of the mother country. Governor Pownall wrote lo Pitt that, in spite of the large expenditures of Massachusetts, the General Court had voted to borrow ;^78,ooo for the approaching campaign, and that such was the spirit of the people that the subscription to the loan was filled in twelve hours. " This province," he adds, " ever did, ever will, and ever must, take the lead when a spirited measure is expected." To command these men, Pitt discarded court favorites and senior officers. He superseded Abercrombie, and called from Germany to the command of his eastern ex- pedition Col. Jeffrey Amherst, with the rank of Major- General. The second in command was a young man, who had been at Dettingen and Fontenoy, who was a lieutenant-colonel at two and twenty, ambitious and conscious of his ability, who was, by one great act, to earn an immortality of fame, — James Wolfe. Even before the declaration of the war which was to begin in disaster and end in permanent conquest, the English ministry had formed the plan of assailing the French in America on all sides at once, and of repelling them, by a bold and concerted action, from all their en- croachments. Let us for a moment consider the five objective points l6 WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? I I of this final struggle for the possession of the North American continent. They covered the whole territory- controlled by France, and the campaign which now opened included, ist, the capture of Fort Duquesne, which was the key to the region west of the Alle- ghanies ; 2d, Louisburg and Acadia, which, in French hands, threatened New England, and controlled the fisheries of Newfoundland ; 3d, Crown Point and Ticon- deroga, which controlled the route to Canada by way of Lake George and Lake Champlain, and offered a start- ing-point for French expeditions against New York and New England ; 4th, Niagara, which lay on the portage between Lake Erie and Ontario, and protected the great fur trade of the upper lakes and the west ; 5th, Quebec, the strongest fortification in Canada, which controlled the St. Lawrence and the eastern province of Canada. The second expedition against Louisburg was con- ducted on a larger scale than that whose modest equip- ment, but glorious result, this Society proposes to com- memorate. The fleet commanded by Admiral Boscawen was composed of twenty-two ships of the line, eighteen frigates, a sloop, and two fire-ships, carrying in all 1,800 guns; 120 transports carried a train of artillery, and 500 American rangers and carpenters, under command of Lieutenant-Colonel Meserve, of New Hampshire, who had served in the first siege, — the British forces exceeding 12,000 men. The French garrison numbered 3,400 reg- ulars and 700 militia. There were in the harbor fourteen French men-of-war, carrying 562 guns. The town was well supplied with provisions and military stores ; the walls of the fortress were defended by 218 cannon and 18 mortars. A landing was effected on the i8th of June, and in a month's time the investment was com- plete. The garrison made an obstinate defence. Sev- eral of the French men-of-war were sunk, to prevent the WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? 1 7 English ships from entering the harbor. When the siege ended, not one French ship had escaped destruction. The bombardment destroyed not only the fortifications, but most of the buildings of the citadel and the town ; and on the morning of the 27th of July the croas of St. George waved for the second time over the fortress whose glory was ended, and which was soon to disappear from the pages of history. The English obtained possession of 221 cannon, 18 moitars, a great quantity of stores and provisions; nearly six thousand officers and men became prisoners of war; the inhabitants of the town were eventually sent to La Rochelle, in France. The army of Amherst went by way of Boston to join Abercrombie, in Canada. The Canadian writer Bourinot, in his work on Cape Breton, comparing the facts of the siege of 1758 with that of 1745, admits that Pepperell's success was the more remarkable of the two. "In the one case," he says, "a famous admiral and experienced generals were at the head of an army of 12,000 well-trained soldiers, and of a fleet of at least 50 war vessels, the noblest that ever appeared in American waters; with officers thoroughly trained in the use of artillery, and with a great store of all the machinery and munitions of war necessary to the reduction of a fortified town. In the other case, a relatively insignificant body of men, without regular training, unskilled in siege operations, poorly provided with cannon, tents, and stores, were led by men taken from the counting-house and farm. These colonial troops were supported by a few small vessels of their own, and by an English squadron, which did not exceed nine vessels at the close of the siege. If the operations of the two sieges are compared, it will be seen that Amherst and Wolfe followed closely, whenever pos- sible, the same plan of attack that was adop^'-d so sue- It WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? cessfuUy in 1745." Even Wolfe's brilliant movements were in accord with suggestions made to the British gov- ernment by Samuel Waldo, one of the officers of Pep- perell's expedition. The second capture of Louisburg was the first great succr is on this continent of the campaign commenced under the inspiration and genius of William Pitt. Again, as in 1745, the bells rang, cannon were fired, towns were illuminated from Maine to Virginia. In London, the colors captured at Louisburg were placed in St. Paul's Cathedral amid the roar of cannon. In this country, all along the anxious line, from Lake George southwards. Englishmen breathed more freely as they saw the French power soon to be wiped out from the American conti- nent. It was the turning-point of the war in both hem- ispheres. Every point on this side marked out by Pitt was gained. The second expedition against Fort Duquesne, in which Washington led the attack, captured the post, which was to be called Pittsburgh, from the great '* organizer of victory." The year after the capture of Louisburg New York was extended to the Niagara River. Crown Point and Ticonderoga were occupied by the British. Wolfe followed up the victory of Louisburg by the capture of Quebec, and with this great achievement the British flag waved from Cape Breton to the Missis- sippi. The five points originally sought for had been gained, and when the Peace of Paris was signed, in 1763, all that was left of the vast possessions of France in the New World were two small islands south of Newfound- land. To England she gave up her possessions east, to Spain the country west, of the Mississippi. With the conclusion of this war began a new ch^^pter in the annals of the world. To quote the late historian Green, •• It is no exaggeration to say that three of the WHY WAS LOUISBURC TWICE BESIEGED? 19 many victories of the Seven Yeari;' War determined for ages to come the destinies of mankind. With that of Rossbach began the re-creation of Germany; with that of Plassy the influence of Europe told for the first time since ihe days of Alexander on the nations of the East ; with the triumph of Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham began the history of the United States of America." The triumph of Wolfe was made possible by the second siege of Louisburg. Within a year after the capture of the fortress a fleet of twenty-two ships of the line and many frigates, with an army of nine thousand men, assembled in that port and made preparations for the conquest of Canada. When the colonial contingents had arrived, and the necessary anangements had been made, the last great fleet that has ever entered the harbor sailed for the St. Lawrence to accomplish that great and decisive feat of arms by which Canada was lost to France and a colonial empire gained to England. After the building of Halifax, and especially after the capture of Quebec, the English government had no motive for maintaining Louisburg at the heavy cost which it required. Pitt, therefore, instructed Amherst to de- molish the fortifications. " Render," he said, " the port and harbor as incommodious and as near impracticable as may be." Its garrison, armament, and stores were therefore transferred to Halifax. Much of the stone which formed the foundations and ornamental parts of the best buildings was carried to the same place, where they were used in the new town that was growing up on the hill overlooking the harbor. Thus " Louisburg passed away from the memory of the world." The war which closed by the Treaty of Paris, in 1763, had been a costly one to the American colonies. They had spent sixteen million dollars, and England repaid but five million. The former lost thirty thousand men, ao WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESIEGED? while throughout their borders were suffered the untold horrors of Indian barbarity. The taxes sometimes equalled two-thirds of the taxpayers' income; but these taxes were levied by their own representatives, and were paid with- out a murmur. Troops had been raised and supplies voted, not by ICngland, but by the colonies. While sup- porting the British Empire, they were legislating for themselves ; while fighting the battles of Great Britain, they were learning how, when the time came, to fight against Great Britain. Sneered at by young English subalterns for whom our own officers were thrust aside, the latter received a military education, which gave us, when our time came, the trained services of Washington, Gates, Montgomery, Stark, Arnold, Morgan, Putnam, Gridley, and scores of others. From isolated commu- nities, the colonies were brought together by a common interest and a common defence, and were thus prepared to stand together when their own time came to make the attack against the common foe. "The stormy coast of Cape Breton," wrote Parkman, " is indented by a small land-locked bay, between which and the ocean lies a tongue of land, dotted with a few grazing sheep, and intersected by rows of stone that mark, more or less distinctly, the lines of what once were streets. Green mounds and embankments of earth en- close the whole space, and beneath the highest of them yawn arches and caverns of ancient masonry. This grassy solitude was once ' the Dunkirk of America.' Here stood Louisourg ; and not all the efforts of its con- querors, qpr all the havoc of succeeding times, have availed to efface it. Men in hundreds toiled for months with lever, spade, and gunpowder in the work of de- struction, and for more than a century it has served as a stone-quarry ; but the remains of its vast defences still tell their tale of human valor and human woe, . . , U.»,hi..i>-n.3^<,.;,u,i*ifljjlSi« WHY WAS LOUISBURG TWICE BESFEGED? 21 Beyond lies a hamlet of fishermen, by tiie edge of the water, and a few scattered dwellings dot the rough hills, bristled with stunted firs, that gird the quiet basin; while close at hand, within the precinct of the vanished fortress, stand two smail farm-houses. All else is a soli- tude of ocean, rock, marsh, and forest." And here it is that the monument to be raised by the descendants of the Soldiers of Colonial Wars, on the 17th of June next,— the anniversary of a day fateful in our history, — will commemorate the valor of our New England troops, of which the early manifestation of 1745 was the bright augury of a later and splendid demon- stration. m'