As the expedition began, so it now ended, with a prayer, which has come down to us as a part of its history. Pepperell celebrated his entry into Louisburg by giving a dinner to his officers. When they were seated at table, the general called upon his old friend and neighbor, the Rev. Mr. Moody of York, to ask the Divine blessing. As the parson’s prayers were proverbial for their length, the countenances of the guests fell when he arose from his chair, but to everybody’s surprise the venerable chaplain made his model and pithy appeal to the throne of grace in these words:
“Good Lord! we have so many things to thank thee for, that time will be infinitely too short to do it: we must therefore leave it for the work of eternity.”
[22]General John Nixon is one of those referred to.
[23]Douglass (Summary), Belknap (“History of New Hampshire”) and Hutchinson (“History of Massachusetts Bay”) have accounts of the Louisburg expedition. Douglass and Hutchinson wrote contemporaneously, and were well informed, the latter especially, upon all points relating to the inception and organization. Of their military criticism it is needless to speak. There is a host of authorities, both French and English, most of which are collected in Vol. V. “Narrative and Critical History of America.”
[24]Richard Gridley subsequently laid out the works at Bunker Hill and Dorchester Heights, in much the same manner.
[25]Shirley’s second messenger, Captain Loring, on presenting his despatches, was allowed but twelve hours in London, being then ordered on board the Princess Mary, one of the ships referred to.
X
AFTERTHOUGHTS
And now comes the strangest part of the story. We get quite accustomed to thinking of the American colonies as the football of European diplomacy, our reading of history has fully prepared us for that: but we are not prepared to find events in the New World actually shaping the course of those in the Old. In a word, England lost the battle in Europe, but won it in America. France was confounded at seeing the key to Canada in the hands of the enemy she had just beaten. England and France were like two duellists who have had a scuffle, in the course of which they have exchanged weapons. Instead of dictating terms, France had to compromise matters. For the sake of preserving her colonial possessions, she now had to give up her dear-bought conquests on the continent of Europe. Hostilities were suspended. All the belligerents agreed to restore what they had taken from each other, and cry quits; but it is plain that France would never have consented to such a settlement at a time when her adversaries were so badly crippled, when all England was in a ferment, and she hurrying back her troops from Holland in order to put down rebellion at home, thus leaving the coalition of which she was the head to stand or fall without her. France would not have stayed her victorious march, we think, under such circumstances as these, unless the nation’s attention had been forcibly recalled to the gravity of the situation in America.
In some respects this episode of history recalls the story of the mailed giant, armed to the teeth, and of the stripling with his sling.
As all the conquests of this war were restored by the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, Cape Breton went to France again.