BY SAMUEL ADAMS DRAKE AUTHOR OF “BURGOYNE’S INVASION OF 1777” ETC. BOSTON MDCCCXCI LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS 10 MILK STREET NEXT “THE OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE” NEW YORK CHAS. T. DILLINGHAM 718 AND 720 BROADWAY Copyright, 1890, By Lee and Shepard. ISLAND BATTERY, WITH LOUISBURG IN THE DISTANCE....

The creation of great maritime fortresses, primarily designed to hold with iron hand important highways of commerce, like Gibraltar, or simply to guard great naval arsenals, like Kronstadt, or, again, placed where some great river has cleft a broad path into the heart of a country, thus laying it open to invasion, has long formed part of the military policy of all maritime nations. In the New World the Spaniards were the first to emphasize their adhesion to these essential principles by the erec

The annals of a celebrated fortress are sure to present some very curious and instructive phases of national policy and character. Of none of the fortresses of colonial America can this be said with greater truth than of Louisburg, once the key and stronghold of French power in Canada. No historic survey can be called complete which does not include the scene itself. Nowhere does the reality of history come home to us with such force, or leave such deep, abiding impressions, as when we stand upo

Having glanced at the purely military exigencies, which had at length forced themselves upon the attention of French statesmen, and having gone over the ground with the view of impressing its topographical features more firmly in our minds, we may now look at the underlying political and economic causes, out of which the French court finally matured a scheme for the maintenance of their colonial possessions in Canada in the broadest sense. In creating Louisburg the court of Versailles had far mo

We will now rapidly sketch the course of events which led to war on both sides of the Atlantic. Having been obliged to surrender Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the French court determined to make use of their colonists in those places for building up Louisburg. In the first place, M. de Costebello, who had just lost his government of the French colony of Placentia, in Newfoundland, under the terms of the treaty, was ordered to take charge of the proposed new colony on Cape Breton, and in accord a

However Shirley’s efforts to avert a present danger might succeed, nobody saw more clearly than he did that his measures only went half way toward their mark. With Louisburg intact, the enemy might sweep the coasts of New England with their expeditions, and her commerce from the seas. The return of spring, when warlike operations might be again resumed, was therefore looked forward to at Boston with the utmost uneasiness. Merchants would not risk their ships on the ocean. Fishermen dared not thi

The next, and possibly most vital step of all, since the fate of the expedition must turn upon it, was to choose a commander. For this important station the province was quite as deficient in men of experience as it was in materials of war: with the difference that one could be created of raw substances while the other could not. Here the nicest tact and judgment were requisite to avoid making shipwreck of the whole enterprise. Not having a military man, the all-important thing was to find a pop

The crude plan of attack, as digested at Boston, consisted in an investment of Louisburg by the land forces and a blockade by sea. To enforce this blockade, Shirley had sent out some armed vessels in advance of the expedition, with orders to cruise off the island, and to intercept all vessels they should fall in with, so that news of the armament might not get into Louisburg, by any chance, before its coming. This was all the more necessary because Shirley had indulged hopes, from the first, of

Our guard-vessels having reported the shores to be at last free from ice, and the wind coming fair for Louisburg, the welcome signal to weigh anchor was given on the 29th of April. On board the fleet all was now bustle and excitement. In a very short time a hundred transport-vessels were standing out of Canso Harbor, under a cloud of canvas, for Gabarus Bay, the place fixed upon by Shirley for making the contemplated descent. Bound to the letter of his orders, Pepperell seems to have first purpo

The routine of camp life is not without interest as tending to show what was the temper of the men under circumstances of unusual trial and hardship. They were housed in tents, most of which proved rotten and unserviceable, or in booths, which they built for themselves out of poles and green boughs cut in the neighboring woods. The relief parties, told off each day for work in the trenches, were marched to their stations after dark, as the enemy’s fire swept the ground over which they must pass.

And now comes the strangest part of the story. We get quite accustomed to thinking of the American colonies as the football of European diplomacy, our reading of history has fully prepared us for that: but we are not prepared to find events in the New World actually shaping the course of those in the Old. In a word, England lost the battle in Europe, but won it in America. France was confounded at seeing the key to Canada in the hands of the enemy she had just beaten. England and France were lik