1757, 1758.] HIS PLANS FOR AMERICA. 253 they were repulsed with some loss. In Africa they drove the French from the Guinea coast, and seized their establishment at Senegal. It was towards America that Pitt turned his heartiest efforts. His first aim was to take Louisbourg, as a step towards taking Quebec; then Ticonderoga, that thorn in the side of the northern colonies; and lastly Fort Duquesne, the Key of the Great West. He recalled Loudon, for whom he had a fierce contempt; but there were influences which he could not disregard, and Major-General Abercrombie, who was next in order of rank, an indifferent soldier, though a veteran in years, was allowed to succeed him, and lead in person the attack on Ticonderoga.1 Pitt hoped that Brigadier Lord Howe, an admirable officer, who was joined with Abercrombie, would be the real commander, and make amends for all shortcomings of his chief. To command the Louisbourg expedition, Colonel Jeffrey Amherst was recalled from the German war, and made at one leap a major-general. He was energetic and resolute, somewhat cautious and slow, but with a bulldog tenacity of grip. Under him were three brigadiers, Whitmore, Lawrence, and Wolfe, of whom the youngest is the most noteworthy. In the luckless Rochefort expedition, Colonel James Wolfe was 1 Order, War Office, 19 December, 1757. 2 Pitt to Abercrombie, 27 January, 1758. Instructions for our Trusty and Well-beloved Jeffrey Amherst, Esq., Major-General of our Forces in North America, 3 March, 1758. conspicuous by a dashing gallantry that did not escape the eye of Pitt, always on the watch for men to do his work. The young officer was ardent, headlong, void of fear, often rash, almost fanatical in his devotion to military duty, and reckless of life when the glory of England or his own was at stake. The third expedition, that against Fort Duquesne, was given to Brigadier John Forbes, whose qualities well fitted him for the task. During his first short term of office, Pitt had given a new species of troops to the British army. These were the Scotch Highlanders, who had risen against the House of Hanover in 1745, and would rise against it again should France accomplish her favorite scheme of throwing a force into Scotland to excite another insurrection for the Stuarts. But they would be useful to fight the French abroad, though dangerous as their possible allies at home; and two regiments of them were now ordered to America. Delay had been the ruin of the last year's attempt against Louisbourg. This time preparation was urged on apace; and before the end of winter two fleets had put to sea: one, under Admiral Boscawen, was destined for Louisbourg; while the other, under Admiral Osborn, sailed for the Mediterranean to intercept the French fleet of Admiral La Clue, who was about to sail from Toulon for America. Osborn, cruising between the coasts of Spain and Africa, barred the way to the Straits of Gibraltar, and kept his enemy imprisoned. La Clue made no attempt to 1758.] NAVAL BATTLES. 255 force a passage; but several combats of detached ships took place, one of which is too remarkable to pass unnoticed. Captain Gardiner of the "Monmouth," a ship of four hundred and seventy men and sixtyfour guns, engaged the French ship "Foudroyant," carrying a thousand men and eighty-four guns of heavier metal than those of the Englishman. Gardiner had lately been reproved by Anson, First Lord of the Admiralty, for some alleged misconduct or shortcoming, and he thought of nothing but retrieving his honor. "We must take her," he said to his crew as the "Foudroyant "hove in sight. "She looks more than a match for us, but I will not quit her while this ship can swim or I have a soul left alive;" and the sailors answered with cheers. The fight was long and furious. Gardiner was killed by a musketshot, begging his first lieutenant with his dying breath not to haul down his flag. The lieutenant nailed it to the mast. At length the "Foudroyant " ceased from thundering, struck her colors, and was carried a prize to England.1 The typical British naval officer of that time was a rugged sea-dog, a tough and stubborn fighter, though no more so than the politer generations that followed, ' at home on the quarter-deck, but no ornament to the drawing-room, by reason of what his contemporary, Entick, the strenuous chronicler of the war, calls, not unapprovingly, "the ferocity of his manners.' While Osborn held La Clue imprisoned at Toulon, 1 Entick, iii. 56-60. Sir Edward Hawke, worthy leader of such men, sailed with seven ships-of-the-line and three frigates to intercept a French squadron from Rochefort convoying a fleet of transports with troops for America. The French ships cut their cables and ran for the shore, where most of them stranded in the mud, and some threw cannon and munitions overboard to float themselves. The expedition was broken up. Of the many ships fitted out this year for the succor of Canada and Louisbourg, comparatively few reached their destination, and these for the most part singly or by twos and threes. Meanwhile Admiral Boscawen with his fleet bore away for Halifax, the place of rendezvous, and Amherst, in the ship "Dublin," followed in his wake. CHAPTER XIX. 1758. LOUISBOURG. CONDITION OF THE FORTRESS. - ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH. – GALLANTRY OF WOLFE. -THE ENGLISH CAMP.-THE SIEGE BEGUN. PROGRESS OF THE BESIEGERS. SALLIES OF THE FRENCH. MADAME DRUCOUR. COURTESIES OF WAR. FRENCH SHIPS DESTROYED.- - CONFLAGRATION. - FURY OF THE BOMBARDMENT. -EXPLOIT OF ENGLISH SAILORS. - THE END THE WHITE FLAG.- Surrender. RECEPTION OF THE NEWS IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA. · WOLFE NOT SATISFIED: HIS LETTERS TO AMHERST; HE DESTROYS GASPÉ; RETURNS TO ENGLAND. NEAR. THE stormy coast of Cape Breton 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 enclose 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; the vaulted caverns where the sheep find shelter from the rain were casemates where terrified women sought refuge from storms of shot and shell, and the shapeless green mounds were citadel, bastion, rampart, and VOL. II.-17 |