Amherst: "Your orders were carried into execution. We have done a great deal of mischief, and spread the terror of His Majesty's arms through the Gulf, but have added nothing to the reputation of them." The destruction of property was great; yet, as Knox writes, "he would not suffer the least barbarity to be committed upon the persons of the wretched inhabitants." 1 He returned to Louisbourg, and sailed for England to recruit his shattered health for greater conflicts. NOTE.-Four long and minute French diaries of the siege of Louisbourg are before me. The first, that of Drucour, covers a hundred and six folio pages, and contains his correspondence with Amherst, Boscawen, and Desgouttes. The second is that of the naval captain Tourville, commander of the ship "Capricieux," and covers fifty pages. The third is by an officer of the garrison whose name does not appear. The fourth, of about a hundred pages, is by another officer of the garrison, and is also anonymous. It is an excellent record of what passed each day, and of the changing conditions, moral and physical, of the besieged. These four Journals, though clearly independent of each other, agree in nearly all essential particulars. I have also numerous letters from the principal officers, military, naval, and civil, engaged in the defence, Drucour, Desgouttes, Houllière, Beaussier, Marolles, Tourville, Courserac, Franquet, Villejouin, Prévost, and Querdisien. These, with various other documents relating to the siege, were copied from the originals in the Archives de la Marine. Among printed authorities on the French side may be mentioned Pichon, Lettres et Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire du Cap-Breton, and the Campaign of Louisbourg, by the Chevalier Johnstone, a Scotch Jacobite serving under Drucour. The chief authorities on the English side are the official Journal of Amherst, printed in the London Magazine and in other contemporary periodicals, and also in Mante, History of the Late War; five letters from Amherst to Pitt, written during the siege (Public Record Office); an excellent private Journal called An Authentic Account of the Reduction of Louisbourg, by a Spectator, parts of which have been copied verbatim by Entick without acknowledgment; the admirable Journal of Captain John Knox, which contains numerous letters and orders relating to the 1 "Les Anglais ont très-bien traités les prisonniers qu'ils ont faits dans cette partie "[Gaspé, etc]. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 4 Nov. 1758. siege; and the correspondence of Wolfe contained in his Life by Wright. Before me is the Diary of a captain or subaltern in the army of Amherst at Louisbourg, found in the garret of an old house at Windsor, Nova Scotia, on an estate belonging in 1760 to Chief Justice Deschamps. I owe the use of it to the kindness of George Wiggins, Esq., of Windsor, N. S. Mante gives an excellent plan of the siege operations, and another will be found in Jefferys, Natural and Civil History of French Dominions in North America. CHAPTER XX. 1758. TICONDEROGA. ADVANCE DOWN ACTIVITY OF THE PROVINCES. - SACRIFICES OF MASSACHUSETTS. — THв DEATH OF IN the last year Loudon called on the colonists for four thousand men. This year Pitt asked them for twenty thousand, and promised that the King would supply arms, ammunition, tents, and provisions, leaving to the provinces only the raising, clothing, and pay of their soldiers; and he added the assurance that Parliament would be asked to make some compensation even for these.1 Thus encouraged, cheered by the removal of Loudon, and animated by the unwonted vigor of British military preparation, the several provincial assemblies voted men in abundance, though the usual vexatious delays took place in raising, equipping, and sending them to the field. 1 Pitt to the Colonial Governors, 30 Dec. 1757. "1 In this connection, an able English writer has brought against the colonies, and especially against Massachusetts, charges which deserve attention. Viscount Bury says: "Of all the colonies, Massachusetts was the first which discovered the designs of the French and remonstrated against their aggressions; of all the colonies she most zealously promoted measures of union for the common defence, and made the greatest exertions in furtherance of her views." But he adds that there is a reverse to the picture, and that "this colony, so high-spirited, so warlike, and apparently so loyal, would never move hand or foot in her own defence till certain of repayment by the mother country.' The groundlessness of this charge is shown by abundant proofs, one of which will be enough. The Englishman Pownall, who had succeeded Shirley as royal governor of the province, made this year a report of its condition to Pitt. Massachusetts, he says, "has been the frontier and advanced guard of all the colonies against the enemy in Canada," and has always taken the lead in military affairs. In the three past years she has spent on the expeditions of Johnson, Winslow, and Loudon £242,356, besides about £45,000 a year to support the provincial government, at the same time maintaining a number of forts and garrisons, keeping up scouting-parties, and building, equipping, and manning a ship of twenty guns for the service of the King. In the first two months of the present year, 1758, she made 1 Bury, Exodus of the Western Nations, H. 250, 251. a further military outlay of £172,239. Of all these sums she has received from Parliament a reimbursement of only £70,117, and hence she is deep in debt; yet, in addition, she has this year raised, paid, maintained, and clothed seven thousand soldiers placed under the command of General Abercromby, besides above twenty-five hundred more serving the King by land or sea; amounting in all to about one in four of her able-bodied men. Massachusetts was extremely poor by the standards of the present day, living by fishing, farming, and a trade sorely hampered by the British navigation laws. Her contributions of money and men were not ordained by an absolute king, but made by the voluntary act of a free people. Pownall goes on to say that her present war-debt, due within three years, is 366,698 pounds sterling, and that to meet it she has imposed on herself taxes amounting, in the town of Boston, to thirteen shillings and twopence to every pound of income from real and personal estate; that her people are in distress, that she is anxious to continue her efforts in the public cause, but that without some further reimbursement she is exhausted and helpless.1 Yet in the next year she incurred a new and heavy debt. In 1760 Parliament repaid her £59,575. Far from being fully reimbursed, the 1 Pownall to Pitt, 30 Sept. 1758 (Public Record Office, America and West Indies, LXXI.). "The province of Massachusetts Bay has exerted itself with great zeal and at vast expense for the public service." Registers of Privy Council, 26 July, 1757. 2 Bollan, Agent of Massachusetts, to Speaker of Assembly, 20 March, 1760. It was her share of £200,000 granted to all the colonies in the proportion of their respective efforts. |