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A Half Century of Conflict, Volume II

F >> Francis Parkman >> A Half Century of Conflict, Volume II




Small reinforcements came from New England to hold the place till the
arrival of troops from Gibraltar, promised by the ministry. The two
regiments raised in the colonies, and commanded by Shirley and Pepperrell,
were also intended to form a part of the garrison; but difficulty was found
in filling the ranks, because, says Shirley, some commissions have been
given to Englishmen, and men will not enlist here except under American
officers.

Nothing could be more dismal than the condition of Louisbourg, as reflected
in the diaries of soldiers and others who spent there the winter that
followed its capture. Among these diaries is that of the worthy Benjamin
Crafts, private in Hale's Essex regiment, who to the entry of each day adds
a pious invocation, sincere in its way, no doubt, though hackneyed, and
sometimes in strange company. Thus, after noting down Shirley's gift of
half a pint of rum to every man to drink the King's health, he adds
immediately: "The Lord Look upon us and enable us to trust in him & may he
prepare us for his holy Day." On "September ye 1, being Sabath," we find
the following record: "I am much out of order. This forenoon heard Mr.
Stephen Williams preach from ye 18 Luke 9 verse in the afternoon from ye 8
of Ecles: 8 verse: Blessed be the Lord that has given us to enjoy another
Sabath and opertunity to hear his Word Dispensed." On the next day, "being
Monday," he continues, "Last night I was taken very Bad: the Lord be
pleased to strengthen my inner man that I may put my whole Trust in him.
May we all be prepared for his holy will. Red part of plunder, 9 small
tooth combs." Crafts died in the spring, of the prevailing distemper, after
doing good service in the commissary department of his regiment.

Stephen Williams, the preacher whose sermons had comforted Crafts in his
trouble, was a son of Rev. John Williams, captured by the Indians at
Deerfield in 1704, and was now minister of Long Meadow, Massachusetts. He
had joined the anti-papal crusade as one of its chaplains, and passed for a
man of ability,--a point on which those who read his diary will probably
have doubts. The lot of the army chaplains was of the hardest. A pestilence
had fallen upon Louisbourg, and turned the fortress into a hospital. "After
we got into the town," says the sarcastic Dr. Douglas, whose pleasure it is
to put everything in its worst light, "a sordid indolence or sloth, for
want of discipline, induced putrid fevers and dysenteries, which at length
in August became contagious, and the people died like rotten sheep." From
fourteen to twenty-seven were buried every day in the cemetery behind the
town, outside the Maurepas Gate, by the old lime-kiln, on Rochefort Point;
and the forgotten bones of above five hundred New England men lie there to
this day under the coarse, neglected grass. The chaplain's diary is little
but a dismal record of sickness, death, sermons, funerals, and prayers with
the dying ten times a day. "Prayed at Hospital;--Prayed at
Citadel;--Preached at Grand Eatery;--Visited Capt. [illegible], very
sick;--One of Capt. ----'s company dyd--Am but poorly myself, but able to
keep about." Now and then there is a momentary change of note, as when he
writes: "July 29th. One of ye Captains of ye men of war caind a soldier who
struck ye capt. again. A great tumult. Swords were drawn; no life lost, but
great uneasiness is caused." Or when he sets down the "say" of some Briton,
apparently a naval officer, "that he had tho't ye New England men were
Cowards--but now he tho't yt if they had a pick axe & spade, they w'd dig
ye way to Hell & storm it." [Footnote: The autograph diary of Rev. Stephen
Williams is in my possession. The handwriting is detestable.]

Williams was sorely smitten with homesickness, but he sturdily kept his
post, in spite of grievous yearnings for family and flock. The pestilence
slowly abated, till at length the burying-parties that passed the Maurepas
Gate counted only three or four a day. At the end of January five hundred
and sixty-one men had died, eleven hundred were on the sick list, and about
one thousand fit for duty. [Footnote: On May 10th, 1746, Shirley writes to
Newcastle that eight hundred and ninety men had died during the winter. The
sufferings of the garrison from cold were extreme.] The promised regiments
from Gibraltar had not come. Could the French have struck then, Louisbourg
might have changed hands again. The Gibraltar regiments had arrived so
late upon that rude coast that they turned southward to the milder shores
of Virginia, spent the winter there, and did not appear at Louisbourg till
April. They brought with them a commission for Warren as governor of the
fortress. He made a speech of thanks to the New England garrison, now
reduced to less than nineteen hundred men, sick and well, and they sailed
at last for home, Louisbourg being now thought safe from any attempt of
France.

To the zealous and energetic Shirley the capture of the fortress was but a
beginning of greater triumphs. Scarcely had the New England militia sailed
from Boston on their desperate venture, when he wrote to the Duke of
Newcastle that should the expedition succeed, all New England would be on
fire to attack Canada, and the other colonies would take part with them, if
ordered to do so by the ministry. [Footnote: _Shirley to Newcastle, 4
April, 1745._] And, some months later, after Louisbourg was taken, he
urged the policy of striking while the iron was hot, and invading Canada at
once. The colonists, he said, were ready, and it would be easier to raise
ten thousand men for such an attack than one thousand to lie idle in
garrison at Louisbourg or anywhere else. France and England, he thinks,
cannot live on the same continent. If we were rid of the French, he
continues, England would soon control America, which would make her first
among the nations; and he ventures what now seems the modest prediction
that in one or two centuries the British colonies would rival France in
population. Even now, he is sure that they would raise twenty thousand men
to capture Canada, if the King required it of them, and Warren would be an
acceptable commander for the naval part of the expedition; "but," concludes
the Governor, "I will take no step without orders from his Majesty."
[Footnote: _Shirley to Newcastle, 29 Oct. 1745._]

The Duke of Newcastle was now at the head of the Government. Smollett and
Horace Walpole have made his absurdities familiar, in anecdotes which, true
or not, do no injustice to his character; yet he had talents that were
great in their way, though their way was a mean one. They were talents, not
of the statesman, but of the political manager, and their object was to win
office and keep it.

Newcastle, whatever his motives, listened to the counsels of Shirley, and
directed him to consult with Warren as to the proposed attack on Canada.
At the same time he sent a circular letter to the governors of the
provinces from New England to North Carolina, directing them, should the
invasion be ordered, to call upon their assemblies for as many men as they
would grant. [Footnote: _Newcastle to the Provincial Governors, 14 March,
1746; Shirley to Newcastle, 31 May, 1746; Proclamation of Shirley, 2 June,
1746._] Shirley's views were cordially supported by Warren, and the
levies were made accordingly, though not in proportion to the strength of
the several colonies; for those south of New York felt little interest in
the plan. Shirley was told to "dispose Massachusetts to do its part;" but
neither he nor his province needed prompting. Taking his cue from the Roman
senator, he exclaimed to his Assembly, "_Delenda est Canada;_" and the
Assembly responded by voting to raise thirty-five hundred men, and offering
a bounty equivalent to £4 sterling to each volunteer, besides a blanket for
every one, and a bed for every two. New Hampshire contributed five hundred
men, Rhode Island three hundred, Connecticut one thousand, New York sixteen
hundred, New Jersey five hundred, Maryland three hundred, and Virginia one
hundred. The Pennsylvania Assembly, controlled by Quaker non-combatants,
would give no soldiers; but, by a popular movement, the province furnished
four hundred men, without the help of its representatives. [Footnote:
Hutchinson, II. 381, _note._ Compare _Memoirs of the Principal
Transactions of the Late War._]

As usual in the English attempts against Canada, the campaign was to be a
double one. The main body of troops, composed of British regulars and New
England militia, was to sail up the St. Lawrence and attack Quebec, while
the levies of New York and the provinces farther south, aided, it was
hoped, by the warriors of the Iroquois, were to advance on Montreal by way
of Lake Champlain.

Newcastle promised eight battalions of British troops under
Lieutenant-General Saint Clair. They were to meet the New England men at
Louisbourg, and all were then to sail together for Quebec, under the escort
of a squadron commanded by Warren. Shirley also was to go to Louisbourg,
and arrange the plan of the campaign with the General and the Admiral.
Thus, without loss of time, the captured fortress was to be made a base of
operations against its late owners.

Canada was wild with alarm at reports of English preparation. There were
about fifty English prisoners in barracks at Quebec, and every device was
tried to get information from them; but being chiefly rustics caught on the
frontiers by Indian war-parties, they had little news to give, and often
refused to give even this. One of them, who had been taken long before and
gained over by the French, [Footnote: "Un ancien prisonnier affidé que l'on
a mis dans nos interests."] was used as an agent to extract information
from his countrymen, and was called _"notre homme de confiance."_ At
the same time the prisoners were freely supplied with writing materials,
and their letters to their friends being then opened, it appeared that they
were all in expectation of speedy deliverance. [Footnote: _Extrait en
forme de Journal de ce quie s'est passé dans la Colonie depuis ...le 1
Déc. 1745, jusqu'au 9 Nov. 1746, signé Beauharnois et Hocquart._]

In July a report came from Acadia that from forty to fifty thousand men
were to attack Canada; and on the 1st of August a prisoner lately taken at
Saratoga declared that there were thirty-two warships at Boston ready to
sail against Quebec, and that thirteen thousand men were to march at once
from Albany against Montreal. "If all these stories are true," writes the
Canadian journalist, "all the English on this continent must be in arms."

Preparations for defence were pushed with feverish energy. Fireships were
made ready at Quebec, and fire-rafts at Isle-aux-Coudres; provisions were
gathered, and ammunition was distributed; reconnoitring parties were sent
to watch the Gulf and the River; and bands of Canadians and Indians lately
sent to Acadia were ordered to hasten back.

Thanks to the Duke of Newcastle, all these alarms were needless. The
Massachusetts levies were ready within six weeks, and Shirley, eager and
impatient, waited in vain for the squadron from England and the promised
eight battalions of regulars. They did not come; and in August he wrote to
Newcastle that it would now be impossible to reach Quebec before October,
which would be too late. [Footnote: _Shirley to Newcastle, 22 Aug.
1746._] The eight battalions had been sent to Portsmouth for
embarkation, ordered on board the transports, then ordered ashore again,
and finally sent on an abortive expedition against the coast of France.
There were those who thought that this had been their destination from the
first, and that the proposed attack on Canada was only a pretence to
deceive the enemy. It was not till the next spring that Newcastle tried to
explain the miscarriage to Shirley. He wrote that the troops had been
detained by head-winds till General Saint Clair and Admiral Lestock thought
it too late; to which he added that the demands of the European war made
the Canadian expedition impracticable, and that Shirley was to stand on the
defensive and attempt no further conquests. As for the provincial soldiers,
who this time were in the pay of the Crown, he says that they were "very
expensive," and orders the Governor to get rid of them "as cheap as
possible." [Footnote: _Newcastle to Shirley, 30 May 1747._]
Thus, not for the first time, the hopes of the colonies were brought to
nought by the failure of the British ministers to keep their promises.

When, in the autumn of 1746, Shirley said that for the present Canada was
to be let alone, he bethought him of a less decisive conquest, and proposed
to employ the provincial troops for an attack on Crown Point, which formed
a half-way station between Albany and Montreal, and was the constant
rendezvous of war-parties against New York, New Hampshire, and
Massachusetts, whose discords and jealousies had prevented them from
combining to attack it. The Dutch of Albany, too, had strong commercial
reasons for not coming to blows with the Canadians. Of late, however,
Massachusetts and New York had suffered so much from this inconvenient
neighbor that it was possible to unite them against it; and as Clinton,
governor of New York, was scarcely less earnest to get possession of Crown
Point than was Shirley himself, a plan of operations was soon settled. By
the middle of October fifteen hundred Massachusetts troops were on their
way to join the New York levies, and then advance upon the obnoxious post.
[Footnote: _Memoirs of the Principal Transactions of the Last War._]

Even this modest enterprise was destined to fail. Astounding tidings
reached New England, and startled her like a thunder-clap from dreams of
conquest. It was reported that a great French fleet and army were on their
way to retake Louisbourg, reconquer Acadia, burn Boston, and lay waste the
other seaboard towns. The Massachusetts troops marching for Crown Point
were recalled, and the country militia were mustered in arms. In a few days
the narrow, crooked streets of the Puritan capital were crowded with more
than eight thousand armed rustics from the farms and villages of Middlesex,
Essex, Norfolk, and Worcester, and Connecticut promised six thousand more
as soon as the hostile fleet should appear. The defences of Castle William
were enlarged and strengthened, and cannon were planted on the islands at
the mouth of the harbor; hulks were sunk in the channel, and a boom was
laid across it under the guns of the castle. [Footnote: _Shirley to
Newcastle, 29 Sept. 1746._ Shirley says that though the French
may bombard the town, he does not think they could make a landing, as he
shall have fifteen thousand good men within call to oppose them.] The alarm
was compared to that which filled England on the approach of the Spanish
Armada. [Footnote: Hutchinson, II. 382.]

Canada heard the news of the coming armament with an exultation that was
dashed with misgiving as weeks and months passed and the fleet did not
appear. At length in September a vessel put in to an Acadian harbor with
the report that she had met the ships in mid-ocean, and that they counted a
hundred and fifty sail. Some weeks later the Governor and Intendant of
Canada wrote that on the 14th of October they received a letter from
Chibucto with "the agreeable news" that the Duc d'Anville and his fleet had
arrived there about three weeks before. Had they known more, they would
have rejoiced less.

That her great American fortress should have been snatched from her by a
despised militia was more than France could bear; and in the midst of a
burdensome war she made a crowning effort to retrieve her honor and pay the
debt with usury. It was computed that nearly half the French navy was
gathered at Brest under command of the Duc d'Anville. By one account his
force consisted of eleven ships of the line, twenty frigates, and
thirty-four transports and fireships, or sixty-five in all. Another list
gives a total of sixty-six, of which ten were ships of the line, twenty-two
were frigates and fireships, and thirty-four were transports. [Footnote:
This list is in the journal of a captured French officer called by Shirley
M. Rebateau.] These last carried the regiment of Ponthieu, with other
veteran troops, to the number in all of three thousand one hundred and
fifty. The fleet was to be joined at Chibucto, now Halifax, by four heavy
ships-of-war lately sent to the West Indies under M. de Conflans.

From Brest D'Anville sailed for some reason to Rochelle, and here the ships
were kept so long by head-winds that it was the 20th of June before they
could put to sea. From the first the omens were sinister. The Admiral was
beset with questions as to the destination of the fleet, which was known to
him alone; and when, for the sake of peace, he told it to his officers,
their discontent redoubled. The Bay of Biscay was rough and boisterous, and
spars, sails, and bowsprits were carried away. After they had been a week
at sea, some of the ships, being dull sailers, lagged behind, and the rest
were forced to shorten sail and wait for them. In the longitude of the
Azores there was a dead calm, and the whole fleet lay idle for days. Then
came a squall, with lightning. Several ships were struck. On one of them
six men were killed, and on the seventy-gun ship "Mars" a box of musket and
cannon cartridges blew up, killed ten men, and wounded twenty-one. A
storeship which proved to be sinking was abandoned and burned. Then a
pestilence broke out, and in some of the ships there were more sick than in
health.

On the 14th of September they neared the coast of Nova Scotia, and were in
dread of the dangerous shoals of Sable Island, the position of which they
did not exactly know. They groped their way in fogs till a fearful storm,
with thunder and lightning, fell upon them. The journalist of the voyage, a
captain in the regiment of Ponthieu, says, with the exaggeration common in
such cases, that the waves ran as high as the masts; and such was their
violence that a transport, dashing against the ship "Amazone," immediately
went down, with all on board. The crew of the "Prince d'Orange," half
blinded by wind and spray, saw the great ship "Caribou," without bowsprit
or main-topmast, driving towards them before the gale, and held their
breath in expectation of the shock as she swept close alongside and
vanished in the storm. [Footnote: _Journal historique du Voyage de la
Flotte commandée par M. le Duc d'Enville._ The writer was on board the
"Prince d'Orange," and describes what he saw (Archives du Séminaire de
Québec; printed in _Le Canada Français._)] The tempest raged all
night, and the fleet became so scattered that there was no more danger of
collision. In the morning the journalist could see but five sail; but as
the day advanced the rest began to reappear, and at three o'clock he
counted thirty-one from the deck of the "Prince d'Orange." The gale was
subsiding, but its effects were seen in hencoops, casks, and chests
floating on the surges and telling the fate of one or more of the fleet.
The "Argonaut" was rolling helpless, without masts or rudder; the "Caribou"
had thrown overboard all the starboard guns of her upper deck; and the
vice-admiral's ship, the "Trident," was in scarcely better condition.

On the 23d they were wrapped in thick fog and lay firing guns, ringing
bells, and beating drums to prevent collisions. When the weather cleared,
they looked in vain for the Admiral's ship, the "Northumberland."
[Footnote: The "Northumberland" was an English prize captured by Captains
Serier and Conflans in 1744.] She was not lost, however, but with two other
ships was far ahead of the fleet and near Chibucto, though in great
perplexity, having no pilot who knew the coast. She soon after had the good
fortune to capture a small English vessel with a man on board well
acquainted with Chibucto harbor. D'Anville offered him his liberty and a
hundred louis if he would pilot the ship in. To this he agreed; but when he
rejoined his fellow-prisoners they called him a traitor to his country, on
which he retracted his promise. D'Anville was sorely perplexed; but
Duperrier, captain of the "Northumberland," less considerate of the
prisoner's feelings, told him that unless he kept his word he should be
thrown into the sea, with a pair of cannon-balls made fast to his feet. At
this his scruples gave way, and before night the "Northumberland" was safe
in Chibucto Bay. D'Anville had hoped to find here the four ships of
Conflans which were to have met him from the West Indies at this, the
appointed rendezvous; but he saw only a solitary transport of his own
fleet. Hills covered with forests stood lonely and savage round what is now
the harbor of Halifax. Conflans and his four ships had arrived early in the
month, and finding nobody, though it was nearly three months since
D'Anville left Rochelle, he cruised among the fogs for a while, and then
sailed for France a few days before the Admiral's arrival.

D'Anville was ignorant of the fate of his fleet; but he knew that the two
ships which had reached Chibucto with him were full of sick men, that their
provisions were nearly spent, and that there was every reason to believe
such of the fleet as the storm might have spared to be in no better case.
An officer of the expedition describes D'Anville as a man "made to command
and worthy to be loved," and says that he had borne the disasters of the
voyage with the utmost fortitude and serenity. [Footnote: _Journal
historique du Voyage._] Yet suspense and distress wrought fatally upon
him, and at two o'clock in the morning of the 27th he died,--of apoplexy,
by the best accounts; though it was whispered among the crews that he had
ended his troubles by poison. [Footnote: _Declaration of H. Kannan and
D. Deas, 23 Oct. 1746. Deposition of Joseph Foster, 24 Oct. 1746, sworn to
before Jacob Wendell, J. P._ These were prisoners in the ships at
Chibucto.]

At six o'clock in the afternoon of the same day D'Estournel, the
vice-admiral, with such ships as remained with him, entered the harbor and
learned what had happened. He saw with dismay that he was doomed to bear
the burden of command over a ruined enterprise and a shattered fleet. The
long voyage had consumed the provisions, and in some of the ships the crews
were starving. The pestilence grew worse, and men were dying in numbers
every day. On the 28th, D'Anville was buried without ceremony on a small
island in the harbor. The officers met in council, and the papers of the
dead commander were examined. Among them was a letter from the King in
which he urged the recapture of Louisbourg as the first object of the
expedition; but this was thought impracticable, and the council resolved to
turn against Annapolis all the force that was left. It is said that
D'Estournel opposed the attempt, insisting that it was hopeless, and that
there was no alternative but to return to France. The debate was long and
hot, and the decision was against him. [Footnote: This is said by all the
writers except the author of the _Journal historique_, who merely
states that the council decided to attack Annapolis, and to detach some
soldiers to the aid of Quebec. This last vote was reconsidered.] The
council dissolved, and he was seen to enter his cabin in evident distress
and agitation. An unusual sound was presently heard, followed by groans.
His door was fastened by two bolts, put on the evening before by his order.
It was burst open, and the unfortunate commander was found lying in a pool
of blood, transfixed with his own sword. Enraged and mortified, he had
thrown himself upon it in a fit of desperation. The surgeon drew out the
blade, but it was only on the urgent persuasion of two Jesuits that the
dying man would permit the wound to be dressed. He then ordered all the
captains to the side of his berth, and said, "Gentlemen, I beg pardon of
God and the King for what I have done, and I protest to the King that my
only object was to prevent my enemies from saying that I had not executed
his orders;" and he named M. de la Jonquière to command in his place. In
fact, La Jonquière's rank entitled him to do so. He was afterwards well
known as governor of Canada, and was reputed a brave and able sea-officer.

La Jonquière remained at Chibucto till late in October. Messengers were
sent to the Acadian settlements to ask for provisions, of which there was
desperate need; and as payment was promised in good metal, and not in
paper, the Acadians brought in a considerable supply. The men were encamped
on shore, yet the pestilence continued its ravages. Two English prisoners
were told that between twenty-three and twenty-four hundred men had been
buried by sea or land since the fleet left France; and another declares
that eleven hundred and thirty-five burials took place while he was at
Chibucto. [Footnote: _Declaration of Kannan and Deas. Deposition of
Joseph Foster._] The survivors used the clothing of the dead as gifts to
the neighboring Indians, who in consequence were attacked with such
virulence by the disease that of the band at Cape Sable three fourths are
said to have perished. The English, meanwhile, learned something of the
condition of their enemies. Towards the end of September Captain Sylvanus
Cobb, in a sloop from Boston, boldly entered Chibucto Harbor, took note of
the ships lying there, and though pursued, ran out to sea and carried the
results of his observations to Louisbourg. [Footnote: _Report of Captain
Cobb,_ in _Shirley to Newcastle, 13 Oct. 1746._] A more thorough
reconnoissance was afterwards made by a vessel from Louisbourg bringing
French prisoners for exchange under a flag of truce; and it soon became
evident that the British colonies had now nothing to fear.

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