18 



the people of New England, who saw evidence that the honse of Han- 

 over, like the Stuarts, were ready to sacrifice their victories and their 

 interests as " equivalents" for defeats and disasters in Europe. 



The fall of Louishourg and the general hazards of war reduced the 

 number of French vessels employed in the fisheries upwards of four 

 hundred in a single year — to follow the received accounts ; while, of 

 the one hundred which still remained, nearly the whole, probably, 

 made their fares at Newfoundland. This branch of industry was des- 

 tined to a slow recovery of prosperity ; for, in 1756, we record still 

 another war between France and England. 



Among the causes of hostiUties on the part of the latter power, aa an- 

 nounced in the royal declaration, were the aggressions of the French in 

 Nova Scotia.* In that region, and on other coasts frequented by fish- 

 ermen, the war was attended with many distressing circumstances.f 

 Without space for details, I can only give a single example at New- 

 foundland, where M. de Tourneys in command of a French force of four 

 ships-of-the-line, a bomb-ketch, and a body of troops, landed at the 

 Bay of Bulls, destroyed ihe English settlements of Trinity and Carbo- 

 near, captured several vessels, destroyed the stages and implements of 

 fishery of the inhabitants, and, appearing off St. John, the capital of the 

 island, demanded and obtained its surrender. 



Omitting notice of minor events, we come, in 1759, to the second 

 siege of Louishourg. The force employed was immense, consisting of 

 twenty ships-of-the-line, eighteen frigates, a large fleet of smaller ves- 

 sels, and an army of fourteen thousand men. The success of this ex- 

 pedition caused great rejoicings throughout the British empire. The 

 French colors were deposited in St. Paul's, London, and a form ai 

 thanksgiving was ordered to be used in all the churches ; while in New 

 England, prayers and thanksgivings were solemnly offered on the do- 

 mestic altar and in pubhc worship. 



General Wolfe commanded a detached body of two thousand troops, 

 and was highly distinguished.t He sailed from Louishourg the follow- 

 ing year, at the head of eight thousand men, to "die satisfied" on the 

 Plains of Abraham. Well might he utter these words ! He was the 

 victor in one of the decisive battles of the world ! In the hour that the 

 British troops entered Quebec, the rule of America passed from the 

 Gallic to the Anglo-Saxon race. Between the death of a Jesuit father 

 and the breaking up of a French settlement in Maine, and the treaty of 

 Paris, was just a century and a half. We have seen how large a part 



* Mr. Husliissou, in a speech in Parliament in 1826, said: " Sir, tlie war which began in the 

 year 1756, commonly called the Seven Years' War, was, strictly speMking, so far as relates to 

 this country and to the Bourbon governments of France and Spain, a icar for colonial privileges, 

 colonial claims, and colonial ascendency. In the course of that war, British skill and British 

 valor placed in the hands of this country Quebec and the Havana. By the capture of these 

 fortresses. Great Britain became mistress of the colonial destinies of the western world." 



t The first conquests of British arms in America in the French war were the French fort of 

 Beau Sejour, in the Bay of Fiiudy, and two other posts in the same region. Colonel Monckton, 

 the conqueror, gave the name of Fort Cumberland to Beau Sejour. 



t" Wolfe," says Horace Walpole, "who was no friend of Mr. Conway last year, and for 

 whom I consequently have no aflectiou, has great merit, spirit, and alacrity, and shon« 

 extremely at Louishourg." 



