Bellamont Governor of Massachusetts: Canseau and Louisburg

The colonists had reason to expect the co-operation of a British fleet then in the West Indies, under Admiral Sir Peter Warren. They waited some time for its appearance, but in vain. Finally, at the beginning of April, 1745, New England troops sailed from Boston for Canseau, under the general command of William Pepperell, a wealthy merchant of Maine, who was afterward made a baronet for his distinguished services. The ice was yet floating around Cape Breton in such huge masses that ships could not enter the harbor of Louisburg, and the expedition was detained at Canseau almost a month, when it was unexpectedly joined by five war-ships and soon afterward by others from England, under Admiral Warren. That officer had received instructions from home to give to Massachusetts all the aid in his power. On the day after Warren appeared, some vessels arrived from Connecticut with a considerable land force from that colony.

The New England vessels of all sorts now at Canseau numbered one hundred. Governor Shirley had instructed Pepperell to have all of these vessels arrive near Louisburg at the same hour, in the night; and no matter what might then be the condition of the surf, to land all the troops on the rocky shore before daylight, march at once through thickets and over morasses to the city and beyond it, and to take the fortress and town by surprise. Of course a strict compliance with these orders was impossible, but it was undertaken. The vessels all left Canseau, bearing about four thousand troops, and early in the morning of the 30th of April appeared in Gabarus Bay, eastward of Louisburg. The troops were disembarked on the same day, and most of the artillery, ammunition, and provisions were landed. The alarm bells of the city were rung, and cannon from the fortress were fired to warn the suburban inhabitants of danger.

The assailants had heavy work before them, with seemingly inadequate means for its execution. The walls of the fortress were forty feet thick at the bottom, of solid masonry, and from twenty to thirty feet in height. Around them was a ditch, filled with water, eighty feet wide. More than one hundred heavy cannon, and nearly eighty swivels and mortars, composed the armament of the fort. All the walls were swept by artillery from the bastions, and a garrison of sixteen hundred men defended these strong works. There were also batteries with many cannon outside the fort to defend the approaches to it. It seemed possible for two hundred men to defend it against five thousand. The heavy artillery of the assailants consisted of only eighteen cannon and three mortars.

The French sent out a force to oppose the landing, but they were soon put to flight. On the following morning, Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan, of New Hampshire, a resolute volunteer, full of zeal and courage, conducted a small advance column through the woods within sight of Louisburg, and with three cheers greeted the first sight of the fortress. The same evening he marched to a part of the harbor where there were large warehouses containing a vast amount of naval stores, and set them on fire. The smoke, driven by a strong wind into the grand battery situated near, so terrified its garrison that they spiked their guns and fled into the city. Vaughan took possession of the battery, and held it until he was reinforced, in spite of a resolute effort of a French force to retake it. The guns of the battery were unspiked by Major Seth Pomeroy, a Massachusetts blacksmith, who afterward became a useful officer in the French and Indian war. "It looks as if our campaign would last long," the gallant Pomeroy wrote to his wife; "but I am willing to stay till God's time comes to deliver the city into our hands." "Suffer no anxious thought to rest on your mind about me," answered that patriotic New England woman. "The whole town is much engaged with concern for the expedition, how Providence will order the affair, for which religious meetings every week are maintained. I leave you in the hand of God." Such was the spirit of the descendants of the Puritans. The New Hampshire troops bore on their banners the motto given them by the eminent Whitefield-- "Nil desperandum Christo subduce" --Nothing is to be despaired of with Christ for the leader. It inspired many of them with the zeal of crusaders, for they regarded it as an efficacious benediction by a highly gifted and holy man; a true servant of heaven.

The English troops encamped in a semicircle around Louisburg. The heavy cannon and mortars, under the charge of Captain Richard Gridley (who was conspicuous in the siege of Boston thirty years afterward, as an engineer), were dragged on sledges across morasses; trenches were dug by the zealous soldiers; batteries were erected, and on the last day of May a regular siege was commenced. Meanwhile Warren had captured a French seventy-four gun ship, with five hundred men and a large quantity of military stores.