ON CAPE BEETON. 20S 



eveutually achieved a success never anticipated when first mooted. It is also certain 

 that Lienteuaut-Governor Clarice of New York, as early as 1741, in a communication to 

 the Duke of Newcastle, dwelt on the advisability of taking Cape Breton, and of main- 

 taining there and at Plaisance in Newfoundland, a sufficient number of ships and troops 

 to guard the fisheries and to cut off the communications between Canada and the Mis- 

 sissippi, so that eventually that country would become an easy conquest.' In all prob- 

 ability the necessity of capturing Louisbourg was a subject of frequent discussion in 

 those days when the English colonists surveyed the situation in America, and its 

 importance in the scheme of French domination, but no one in authority seems to 

 have moved in the matter until G-OA^eruor Shiiley of 

 Massachusetts, a man of great sagacity and energy — 

 one of the ablest statesmen of early colonial times — 

 placed it iu a practical shape before the people and 

 the legislatures of the colonies. One thing is quite 

 certain that the success of the enterprise from its beginning to its end must be attributed 

 to the energy and daring of the colonists, and no English statesman ever ventured to 

 suggest it. 



If ever there was an instance of the truth of the old adage that "fortune favours the 

 brave," it was the case of the New England expedition against Louisbourg. From the 

 moment of the declaration of war until the capture of the town there was a succession, 

 and, in fact, a combination of events which aided the success of the project. Although 

 war was declared iu the March of 1744, the news reached Loiiisbourg at least two mouths 

 before it was known in Boston, and the result was that the French governor, Duquesnel, 

 contrary to the orders of the government of France, immediately sent out an expedition 

 in the expectation of siirprising the English ports iu Nova Scotia, and bringing the 

 country under the control of France before the English could take adequate measures for 

 its defence. At that time there were only some seventy or eighty soldiers altogether at 

 the little port of Canseau, which was soon forced to .su.rrender. The garrison and the few 

 inhabitants in the place were at once taken to Louisbourg on the understanding that they 

 would be allowed to return to England or to an English colony within a year. It was the 

 intention of the French then to attack Port Royal, where there was at the time only an insig- 

 nificant garrison in the old fort, of which the ramparts and works generally were in a 

 wretched state. A body of some three hundred Micmac andMalecite Indians, led by two 

 or three Frenchmen, among whom was the bold and unscrupulous priest, Le Loutre, one 

 of the most inveterate enemies of the English in America, made their appearance before 

 the fort on the first of July, bvit happily, Colonel Mascarene, the governor of Nova Scotia, 

 then in command at Port lioyal, was a man of great spirit and determination, and he 

 succeeded in repulsing the savages who, like all Indians, never showed any disposition 

 to attack the most ordinary fort defended by cannon. Happily for the English, the fort 

 was well mounted with guns and when at last reinforcements, for which Mascarene had 

 managed to send to Boston, made their appearance, the Indians retired ; and on the later 

 arrival of the French under Duvivier, who had previously taken Canseau, Governor 

 Mascarene was able to resist attack, and his men felt additional confidence from their 



> " N. Y. Col. Doc-," vi. 184. (See App. X to this work.) 



