THE SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST 89 



time in again setting forth their fisheries and in strength- 

 ening their defenses in the New World. French fugitives 

 from Nova Scotia and Placentia settled on Cape Breton 

 Island and resumed fishing operations there. The govern- 

 ment of France began the construction of a stronghold at 

 Louisburg, sparing neither money nor material to make 

 it impregnable. After working on the defenses for twenty- 

 five years at an expense of more than five million dollars 

 the military authorities looked upon Louisburg as the 

 strongest fortress on the west shores of the Atlantic. With 

 the outbreak of the war in 1744 the French had no hesita- 

 tion in sending a company of men from the fort to take 

 Canso from the English. The place was easily captured, 

 the buildings set on fire, and the enemy moved to the siege 

 of Annapolis. The timely arrival of two sloops from Bos- 

 ton broke up the siege, the French retired to Louisburg, 

 and Nova Scotia was saved to the English. 



The state of affairs filled the colonists with alarm. They 

 feared that in subsequent attacks the French would be 

 successful in again securing a foothold in Acadia. Our 

 fishermen regarded the seizure of Canso and other hostile 

 acts of the French as matters of small importance compared 

 with the significance of the prosperous condition of their 

 fisheries. They had beheld with astonishment the ease and 

 rapidity with which their rivals had recovered after being 

 driven from Acadia. For a quarter of a century the New 

 Englanders had been helpless witnesses to the construc- 

 tion of a fortress in the very heart of the fishing industry 

 of America. They were keenly aware of the growing im- 

 portance to the French of the coast fisheries of Newfound- 

 land where cod were so plentiful and so near the shore 

 that their fishermen " caught them with a kind of grap- 

 pling/' without the charge or trouble of bait and line. 1 

 They felt humiliated and disappointed not only because 



i Douglass, I, p. 6. 



