15 



court of admiralty, when sent to England as agent of Masgachtisetts 

 on the question of the Rhode Island boundary, published a pamphlet 

 entitled "The importance of Cape Breton to the British nation, and a 

 plan for taking the place," in which he demonstrated that its conquest 

 would put the English in sole possession of the fisheries of North Amer- 

 ica; would give the colonies abihty to purchase manufactures of the 

 mother country of the value of ten millions of dollars annug.lly ; would 

 employ many thousand families then earning nothing ; increase English 

 mariners and shipping ; cut off all communication between France and 

 Canada by the river St. Lawrence, so that, in the fall of Quebec, the 

 French would be driven from the continent ; and, finally, open a coires- 

 pondence with the remote Indian tribes, and transfer the fur trade to 

 Anglo-Sa^on hands. All this was to follow the reduction and possession 

 of a cold, distant, and inhospitable island. Such was the sentiment of 

 the time. 



In 1745, the conquest of Cape Breton was undertaken. Viewed as 

 a military enterprise, its capture is the most remarkable event in our 

 colonial history. Several colonies south of New England were invited 

 to join the expedition, but none would consent to waste life in a project 

 so mad; and Franklin, forgetting that he was "Boston-born," ridiculed 

 it in one of the wittiest letters he ever wrote. In Massachusetts, and 

 elsewhere at the North, men enlisted as in a crusade. Whitefield made 

 a recruiting house of the sanctuary. To show how the images in the 

 Catholic churches were to be hewn down, axes were brandished and 

 borne about; and, while Puritanism aimed to strike a blow at Catholi- 

 cism, the concerns of the present life were not forgotten. Fishermen 

 panted for revenge on those who had insulted them and driven them 

 from the fishing-grounds. Merchants, with Auchmuty's pamphlet in 

 their hands, thought of the increased sale and the enhanced price of 

 New England fish in foreign markets. Military officers who had served 

 in Nova Scotia in the previous war were ambitious of further distinction 

 aad preferment. Such were the motives. 



Wilham Vaughan, who was extensively engaged in the fisheries, and' 

 whose home was near Pemaquid, in Maine, claimed that, while listen- 

 ing to the tales of some of his own fishermen, he conceived the design 

 otf the expedition. Governor Shirley,* of Massachusetts, embraced 

 his plans, and submitted them to the general court. By this body they 

 were rejected. Renewed by the governor, and insisted upon by the 

 merchants, they were finally adopted by the vote of the speaker, who 

 had acted previously in opposition.t 



many others in ruin. He was sent to England on important service, and, while there, .pro- 

 jected an expedition to Cape Breton. After his return, he was appointed judge of admiralty 

 » second time. He died in 1750. His son, Samuel, a graduate of Harvard University, was 

 an Episcopal minister in New York; and his grandson, Sir Samuel Auchmuty, a lieutenant 

 general in the British army, and died in 1832. The Auchmutys of the revolutionary era ad- 

 hered to the side of the crown. 



* William Shirley, Governor of Massachusetts, was a native of England, and was bred to 

 the law. He came to Boston about the year 1733, and was appointed governor in 1741. In 

 1755, he was conmi%ndeT-in-chief of the British farces in America.. He idied in Roxbuxy, Mas- 

 sachus«tts, in 1771. 



t Mr. Oliver, a Boston member, broke his leg on his way to the house, and was not present. 

 His vote would have caused the rejection of the plan a second time. The members deliber- 

 ated under the first oath of secrecy administered to a legislative assembly in Ameiica. 



