The orders issued to the troops were intended to excite them to anger against the enemy, at the same time that they should inculcate the strongest discipline. The quaintness of some of them renders them worthy of reproduction. "No care or attention will be wanting for the subsistence and preservation of the troops, such as our situation will admit of. There will be an Hospital, and in time it is hoped there will be fresh meat for the sick and wounded men.... The least murmur or complaint against any part of duty will be checked with great severity, and any backwardness in sight of the enemy will be punished with immediate death. If any man is villain enough to desert his colours and go over to the enemy, he shall be excepted in the capitulation, and hanged with infamy as a traitor. When any of our troops are to attack the French regular forces, they are to march close up to them, discharge their pieces loaded with two bullets, and then rush upon them with their bayonets; and the commander of the Highlanders may, when he sees occasion, order his corps to run upon them with their drawn swords.... A body of light troops are now training to oppose the Indians, Canadians, and other painted savages of the Island, who will entertain them in their own way, and preserve the women and children of the Army from their unnatural barbarity. Indians spurred on by our inveterate enemy, the French, are the only brutes and cowards in the creation who were ever known to exercise their cruelties upon the sex, and to scalp and mangle the poor sick soldiers and defenceless women. When the light troops have by practice and experience acquired as much caution and circumspection, as they have spirit and activity, these howling barbarians will fly before them.... The tents will be slightly intrenched or palisaded, that the sentries may not be exposed to the shot of a miserable-looking Mic-Mac, whose trade is not war, but murder.... As the air of Cape Breton is moist and foggy, there must be a particular attention to the fire-arms upon duty, that they may be kept dry, and always fit for use; and the Light Infantry should fall upon some method to secure their arms from the dews, and dropping of the trees when they are in search of the enemy."
After a favourable passage, the fleet anchored in Gabreuse Bay, on Friday the 2nd June. This bay is about three leagues by sea from Louisbourg harbour, and to the southwest of it. Here it was resolved to attempt a landing; but for days the elements fought for the French. Incessant fogs and a tremendous surf rendered the enterprise hopeless, until Thursday, the 8th June. The landing was ultimately effected under the fire of the ships; the leading boats containing the four senior companies of grenadiers, and all the light infantry of the force, under General Wolfe, whose courage and skill on this occasion were conspicuous. With a loss of 111 killed and wounded, they succeeded in driving the enemy back, and the other regiments were able to land. A change of weather prevented the landing of Artillery, baggage, and stores, so that the troops were exposed for the night to great discomfort. The spirit of the men under Wolfe on this occasion was remarkable. Boats were swamped, or dashed to pieces on the rocks; many men were drowned; and all had to leap into the water up to the waist; but nothing could restrain their ardour. Not merely did they drive the enemy back, but they captured 4 officers and 70 men, and 24 pieces of Ordnance.
From this day until the 19th, when the Royal Artillery opened upon the town from a line of batteries which had been thrown up along the shore, the operations of the army were weary and monotonous in the extreme. With the exception of Wolfe's party, which was detached to secure a battery called the Lighthouse Battery,—an undertaking in which he succeeded, the duties of the troops consisted in making roads, and transporting from the landing-place guns, ammunition, and stores. In all the arrangements for the investment and bombardment, Colonel Williamson was warmly supported by General Amherst; and the Admiral lent his assistance by landing his marines to work with the Artillery, and by sending four 32-pounders with part of his own ship's company, for a battery whose construction had been strongly recommended. It was nearly ten o'clock on the night of the 19th, when the English batteries opened on the shipping and on the Island Battery. This last was a powerful battery commanding the entrance to the harbour, and with a double ditch to the land side to strengthen it. It was the chief obstacle to the English movements, and smart as our fire was, it returned it with equal warmth. A battery of six 24-pounders was thrown up at the lighthouse for the sole purpose of attempting to silence this particular battery; and on the 25th it succeeded. The fire on the rest of the fortifications of Louisbourg was marvellously true, and incessant; and as of late years they had been somewhat neglected, and in many places sea-sand had been used with the mortar in their construction, the effect of the English fire was more rapidly apparent.
One precaution had been taken on this occasion by the French, which had been omitted by them in 1745, as they had too good reason to remember. When compelled to evacuate the Grand Battery, they set fire to it, and rendered it utterly useless; so that the course pursued by the English in the former siege, when they turned the guns of the battery against the town, could not be repeated. The effects of the English fire in the siege of 1758, when the Royal Artillery was represented, were thus described by a French officer who was in the town:—"Each cannon shot from the English batteries shook and brought down immense pieces of the ruinous walls, so that, in a short cannonade, the Bastion du Roi, the Bastion Dauphin, and the courtin of communication between them, were entirely demolished, all the defences ruined, all the cannon dismounted, all the parapets and banquettes razed, and became as one continued breach to make an assault everywhere."[[23]]
An attempt was made by the Governor of Louisbourg to procure a cessation of fire against a particular part of the works, behind which he said was the hospital for the sick and wounded. As however, there were shrewd reasons for believing that not the hospital, but the magazine, was the subject of his anxious thoughts, his request was refused, but he was informed that he might place his sick on board ship, where they would be unmolested, or on the island under our sentries. These offers, however, were not accepted.
The fire of the enemy's Artillery slackened perceptibly about the 13th July, and continued getting feebler, so that in a fortnight's time an occasional shot was all that was fired. At the commencement of the siege there were in Louisbourg 218 pieces of ordnance, exclusive of 11 mortars; but such was the effect of the English fire, not merely in dismounting and disabling the guns, but (as the deserters reported) in killing and wounding the gunners, that some days before the 27th July, when the capitulation was signed, the French reply to our Artillery fire was simply nil. The gallantry of the French commandant, the Chevalier de Drucour, was undoubted; but he was sorely tried by the fears and prayers of the unhappy civil population, to whom military glory was a myth, but a bombardment a very painful reality. Madame de Drucour did all in her power to inspire the troops with increased ardour; while there were any guns in position to fire, she daily fired three herself; and showed a courage which earned for her the respect both of friend and enemy. But misfortunes came fast upon one another. A shot from the English batteries striking an iron bolt in the powder magazine of the French ship 'Entreprenant,' an explosion followed, which set fire to her, and to two others alongside, the 'Capricieuse' and 'Superbe.' The confusion which ensued baffles description; and not the least startling occurrence was the self-discharge of the heated guns in the burning ships, whose shot went into the town, and occasionally into the other two men-of-war which had escaped a similar fate to that which befell the three which have been named. Four days later, on the 25th July, a party of 600 British sailors entered the harbour, boarded the only two ships which remained, the 'Prudent' and 'Bienfaisant,' set fire to the former, which had gone aground, and towed the latter out of the harbour to the English fleet.
Their batteries being destroyed, the fortifications one vast breach, their ships of war burnt or captured, and there being no prospect of relief, the French commander had no alternative but capitulation. He first proposed to treat, but was informed in reply, that unless he capitulated in an hour the English fleet would enter the harbour and bombard the town. So, after a little delay, he consented, on condition that the French troops should be sent as prisoners of war to France.
The articles of capitulation were signed on the 27th July, 1758, and immediately three companies of grenadiers took possession of the West Gate, while General Whitmore superintended the disarming of the garrison.
The expenditure of ammunition by the Royal Artillery during the siege was as follows:—13,700 round shot, 3340 shell, 766 case shot, 156 round shot fixed, 50 carcasses, and 1493 barrels of powder. Eight brass, and five iron guns were disabled; and one mortar.
Of the English army, 524 were killed or wounded; and at the capture of the place, there were 10,813 left fit for duty. The total strength of the French garrison, including sailors and marines on shore, at the same date, was 5637 of all ranks, of whom 1790 were sick or wounded.