Warren, in 1747, took part, as second in command, in Anson's naval victory over the French off Cape Finisterre, and in the same year he was elected member of Parliament for Westminster. He died in 1752, at the age of forty-nine, one of the richest commoners in England; and a monument to him stands in the north transept of Westminster Abbey. It tells that he was a 'Knight of the Bath, a Vice Admiral of the Red Squadron of the fleet, and member of the City and Liberty of Westminster'; but it does not tell how close was his sympathy with the English in America, married, as he was, to an American lady, and owner of estates in Manhattan Island and on the Mohawk river; nor, amid the verbiage of eighteenth-century adulation, is there any mention of the part which he took in helping the New England colonists to conquer Louisbourg.
| The New Englanders garrison Louisbourg. Relieved by regular troops. |
The New Englanders garrisoned Louisbourg for the better part of a year. The soldiers were discontented, with some reason. Their success had brought them little or no profit: they wanted to be back on their farms: the town which they occupied was dismantled and insanitary; pestilence broke out, and 'the people died like rotten sheep.'9 Shirley came up from Boston to keep the soldiers quiet, but not till April, 1746, were the colonists relieved by regular troops, sent from Gibraltar. Warren then took sole command for a short time, being succeeded by another sailor, Commodore Knowles.
9 Quoted in Parkman's A Half Century of Conflict, vol. ii, p. 166.
| Preparations for invasion of Canada. The plan miscarries. |
Shirley intended the capture of Louisbourg to be but the beginning of the end, the end being the conquest of Canada. The French Government, on the other hand, were determined to recover their fortress. Each was for the time disappointed. In the early months of 1746, the colonies, elated by their recent and great success, cheerfully answered to the call for soldiers to invade Canada. The home Government promised eight battalions, and had them ready for embarkation at Portsmouth; the plan of campaign—the usual plan of dual invasion by the St. Lawrence and Lake Champlain—was duly outlined; Quebec was thrown into a state of alarm and hurried preparation, when, as so often before, all came to nothing, owing to the shuffling and delays of the ministers of the Crown, in this instance the incompetent Duke of Newcastle. The troops destined for America were diverted to Europe; one more opportunity was lost; one more nail was driven into the coffin of colonial loyalty. Realizing, as the autumn of 1746 drew on, that an invasion of Canada was now out of the question, Shirley determined to attack the French advanced position at Crown Point with the New York and Massachusetts levies; but this plan, too, was frustrated by news of a coming fleet from France, and the fears of Quebec were transferred to Boston.
| Failure of a counter expedition by the French. |
The fleet in question left La Rochelle at midsummer in the year 1746. It consisted of twenty-one ships of war and a number of transports, carrying 3,000 troops. The whole was under the command of the Duc d'Anville. Disaster in the form of tempest and pestilence attended the expedition from first to last. The ships were scattered on the ocean, and it was not until the end of September that the admiral, with three ships, reached Chebucto (now Halifax) harbour. Here, while waiting for the rest of the fleet, he died; and the vice-admiral, D'Estournel, arriving immediately afterwards, saw no hope for the shattered expedition but to return to France. His officers, on the other hand, urged an attack on Annapolis, and D'Estournel, in a fit of mortification and mental distress, put an end to his life. The command now devolved on the Marquis de la Jonquière, a naval officer, who had gone out on board the fleet to take over the government of Canada. He waited into October at Chebucto, the Acadians brought him provisions, but his men still died of disease day by day. He sailed for Annapolis, but encountered fresh storms off Cape Sable; and at length the miserable remains of the fleet made their way back to France, the loss of life having been, it was said, 2,500 men. In the following year, 1747, La Jonquière again set out from France in another fleet, but again he failed to reach Canada; the ships were encountered and defeated off Cape Finisterre by Anson and Warren, and the outgoing Governor of Canada was carried a prisoner to England.
| Canadian raids. |
The main operations of the war were supplemented by the usual series of raids from Canada. In the winter of 1745, Fort Saratoga, thirty-six miles from Albany, was attacked and taken by French and Indians from Crown Point; the place was burnt, and its inhabitants were carried into captivity. It was again reoccupied by the English, but in 1747 was evacuated and burnt as indefensible, to the disgust of the Five Nation Indians, who looked upon the proceeding as evidence of weakness and cowardice. Another successful French attack was made, in August, 1746, on Fort Massachusetts, standing on an eastern tributary of the Hudson, on the line of communication between Albany and the Connecticut river. In short, for three years, the borders of New York, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire were harried by Canadians and Indians, using the French fort at Crown Point as their base.