[55] La Corne au Ministre, 15 Octobre, 1730.
[56] On the establishment of Crown Point, Beauharnois et Hocquart au Roy, 10 Octobre, 1731; Beauharnois et Hocquart au Ministre, 14 Novembre, 1731.
[57] On the claim of France that all North America, except the Spanish colonies of Mexico and Florida, belonged to her, see [Appendix A].
CHAPTER XVIII.
1744, 1745.
A MAD SCHEME.
War of the Austrian Succession.—The French seize Canseau and attack Annapolis.—Plan of Reprisal.—William Vaughan.—Governor Shirley: he advises an Attack on Louisbourg.—The Assembly refuses, but at last consents.—Preparation.—William Pepperrell.—George Whitefield.—Parson Moody.—The Soldiers.—The Provincial Navy.—Commodore Warren.—Shirley as an Amateur Soldier.—The Fleet sails.
The Peace of Utrecht left unsettled the perilous questions of boundary between the rival powers in North America, and they grew more perilous every day. Yet the quarrel was not yet quite ripe; and though the French governor, Vaudreuil, and perhaps also his successor, Beauharnois, seemed willing to precipitate it, the courts of London and Versailles still hesitated to appeal to the sword. Now, as before, it was a European, and not an American, quarrel that was to set the world on fire. The War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1744. When Frederic of Prussia seized Silesia and began that bloody conflict, it meant that packs of howling savages would again spread fire and carnage along the New England border.
News of the declaration of war reached Louisbourg some weeks before it reached Boston, and the French military governor, Duquesnel, thought he saw an opportunity to strike an unexpected blow for the profit of France and his own great honor.