After obtaining a pledge of secrecy from the members, Shirley proceeded to lay his project before the provincial legislature of Massachusetts, which was then in session. The governor’s statement, which was certainly cool and dispassionate, ran somewhat to this effect: “Gentlemen of the General Court, either we must take Louisburg or see our trade annihilated. If you are of my mind we will take it. I have reason to know that the garrison is insubordinate. There is good ground for believing that the commandant is afraid of his own men, that the works are out of repair and the stores running low. I need not dwell further on what is so well known to you all. Now, with four thousand such soldiers as this and the neighboring provinces can furnish, aided by a naval force similarly equipped, the place must surely fall into our hands. I have, moreover, strong hopes of aid from His Majesty’s ships, now in our waters. But the great thing is to throw our forces upon Louisburg before the enemy can hear of our design. Secrecy and celerity are therefore of the last importance. Consider well, gentlemen, that such an opportunity is not likely to occur again. What say you? is Louisburg to be ours or not?”
Shirley’s Plan rejected.
The conservative provincial assembly deliberated upon the proposal with closed doors, and with great unanimity rejected it. The sum of its decision was this: “If we risk nothing, we lose nothing. Should the enemy strike us, we can strike back again. We can ruin his commerce as well as he can destroy ours. Our policy is to stand on the defensive. Very possibly the men might be raised, but where are the arsenals to equip them; where is the money to come from to pay them; where are the engineers, the artillerists, the siege artillery, naval stores, and all the warlike material necessary to such a siege? Why, we haven’t a single soldier; we haven’t a penny. Surely your excellency must be jesting with us. It is a magnificent project, but visionary, your excellency, quite visionary.”
To make use of parliamentary terms, the governor had leave to withdraw, but those who dreamed that he would abandon his darling scheme at the first rebuff it met with, did not know William Shirley.
The Subject again brought up.
The affair was now no longer a secret. Indeed, it had already leaked out through a certain pious deacon, who most inconsiderately prayed for its success in the family circle. The project had been scotched, not killed. Men discussed it everywhere, now that it was an open secret, and the more it was talked of, the more firmly it took hold on the popular mind. The very audacity of the thing pleased the young and adventurous spirits, of whom there were plenty in the New England of that day. Vaughan now set himself to work among the merchants, who saw money to be made in furnishing supplies of every kind for the expedition; while on the other hand, if nothing was to be done, their ships and merchandise must lie idle for so long as the war might last. Little by little the indefatigable Shirley won men over to his views. People grew restive under a policy of inaction. Public sentiment seldom fails of having a wholesome effect upon legislatures, be they ever so settled in their own opinions. It was so in this case. Presently a petition, signed by many of the most influential merchants in the province, was laid on the speaker’s desk, so again bringing the subject up for legislative action.
The Project adopted.
This time the governor carried his point after a whole day’s animated debate. The measure, however, narrowly missed a second, and, perhaps, a final defeat, it having a majority of one vote only; and this result was owing to an accident which, as it was a good deal talked about at the time it happened, may as well be mentioned here. It so chanced that one of the opposition, while hurrying to the House in order to record his vote against the measure, had a fall in the street, and was taken home with a broken leg. There being a tie vote in consequence, Mr. Speaker Hutchinson gave the casting vote in favor of the measure, and so carried it.
If there had been hesitation before, there was none now. In order to prevent the news from getting abroad, all the seaports of Massachusetts were instantly shut by an embargo.[7] The neighboring provinces were entreated to do the same thing. The supplies asked for were voted without debate. Even the emission of paper money, that bugbear of colonial financiers, was cheerfully consented to in the face of a royal order forbidding it. Those who before had been strongest in opposition now gave loyal support to the undertaking.
Free to act at last, Shirley now showed his splendid talent for organizing in full vigor. The work of raising troops, of chartering transports, of collecting arms, munitions, and stores of every kind, went on with an extraordinary impulse. Common smiths were turned into armorers; wheelwrights into artificers; women spent their evenings making bandages and scraping lint. Shirley’s board of war, created for the exigency, took supplies wherever found, paying for them with the paper money the Legislature had just authorized for the purpose. The patience with which these extraordinary war measures were submitted to best shows the temper of the people. The neighboring governments were entreated to join in the expedition and share in the glory. Rhode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey each promised contingents. The other provinces declined having anything to do with it, though New York made a most seasonable loan of ten heavy cannon, upon Shirley’s urgent entreaty, without which the siege must have lagged painfully. The governor had, indeed, suggested, when the deficiency of artillery was spoken of, that the cannon of the Royal Battery of Louisburg would help to make good that deficiency; but, as it was facetiously said at the time, this was too manifest a disposal of the skin before the bear was caught, though it is quite likely that the notion of supplying themselves from the enemy may have tickled the fancy of the young recruits.