1142 MISCELLANEOUS. 



gave peace to Europe by raising, arming, and transporting four thou- 

 sand men," whose success " proved an equivalent for all the successes of 

 the French upon the continent;" and in Lord Chesterfield, that, "in 

 the end it produced peace," and that the noble duke at the head of 

 the admirality declared that, "if France was master of Portsmouth, 

 he would hang the men who should give Cape Breton in exchange." 



The peace of Aix la Chapelle, in 1748, was dishonorable to England 

 at home and in her colonies. Of the adjustment of the questions 

 which relate to our subject, I may remark, that she not only restored 

 Cape Breton to France, and submitted to the humiliating condition of 

 sending two persons of rank and distinction to reside in that kingdom 

 as hostages until that island and other conquests should be actually 

 surrendered, but consented also to omit all mention of the right of 

 English subjects to navigate the American seas without being liable 

 to search and molestation, though that pretension on the part of the 

 French was one of the original causes or the war, as well as the basis 

 of the attacks made on Walpole's ministry. The results of the peace 

 to England were an immense debt, the barren glory of supporting the 

 German sovereignty of Maria Theresa, and the alienation of the 

 affections of the people of New England, who saw evidence that the 

 house of Hanover, like the Stuarts, were ready to sacrifice their 

 victories and their interests as "equivalents" for defeats and disasters 

 in Europe. 



The fall of Louisbourg 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 

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

 another war between France and England. 



Among the causes of hostilities on the part of the latter power, as 

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

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

 fishermen, the war was attended with many distressing circumstances.! 

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

 foundland, where M. de Tourney, 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 the English settlements or Trinity and 

 Carbonear, captured several vessels, destroyed the stages and imple- 

 ments 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 Louisbourg. 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- 



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

 began in the year 1756, commonly called the Seven Years' War, was, strictly speaking, 

 so jar as relates to this country and to the Bourbon governments of France and Spain, a 

 war 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 Fundy, and two other posts in the same region. 

 Colonel Monckton, the conqueror, gave the name of Fort Cumberland to Beau S6jour. 



