[954] Seth Pomeroy’s letter to his wife from Louisbourg, May 8, 1745, was first printed by Edward Everett in connection with his oration on “The Seven Years’ War a School of the Revolution.” Cf. his Orations, i. p. 402.
[955] Harv. Coll. library, 4375.46; Boston Pub. Library, 4417.27; Carter-Brown, iii. no. 824.
[956] Harv. Coll. lib., 4375.41, 5316.38; Haven in Thomas, ii. p. 489; Carter-Brown, iii. no. 585; Stevens, Hist. Coll., i. nos. 815, 816. It again appeared as An accurate and authentic account of the taking of Cape Breton in the year 1745, London, 1758 (cf. Carter-Brown, iii. no. 1,175; Stevens, Bibl. Amer., 1885, £3 13s. 6d.), and in the American Magazine, 1746.
[957] Carter-Brown, iii. 801, 805. Gibson accompanied the prisoners as cartel-agent when they sailed for France, July 4, 1745.
[958] Of the vessels shown in this view the “Massachusetts” frigate (no. 20) was under the command of Edward Tyng, the senior of the provincial naval officers, who, acting under Shirley’s commission, had found a merchantman on the stocks, which under Tyng’s direction was converted into this cruiser of 24 guns. (Mass. Hist. Coll., x. 181; Williamson’s Maine, ii. 223; Preble’s “Notes on Early Ship-Building,” in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Oct., 1871, p. 363; Alden’s Epitaphs, ii. 328; Drake’s Five Years’ War, 246.) Tyng had been a successful officer. The previous year he had captured a French privateer which, sailing from Louisbourg, had infested the bay, and on May 24, 1744, the town of Boston had thanked him.
The next ranking provincial naval officer was Capt. John Rous, or Rouse, who commanded the “Shirley Galley,” a snow, or two-masted vessel, of 24 guns. Rouse had the previous year, in a Boston privateer, spread some consternation among the French fishing-fleet on the Grand Banks. It was this provincial craft and the royal ship the “Mermaid,” of 40 guns, Capt. James Douglas, which captured the French man-of-war the “Vigilant,” 64 guns (no. 15), as she was approaching the coast. (Drake’s Five Years’ War, App. C.) Douglas was transferred to the captured ship, and a requisition was made upon the colonies to furnish a crew to man her. (Corresp., etc., in R. I. Col. Rec., v.) Capt. William Montague was put in command of the “Mermaid,” and after the surrender she sailed, June 22, for England with despatches, arriving July 20. Duplicate despatches were sent by Rouse in the “Shirley Galley,” which sailed July 4. The British government took the “Shirley Galley” into their service and commissioned Rouse as a royal post-captain. This vessel disappears from sight after 1749, when Rouse is found in command of a vessel in the fleet which brought Cornwallis to Chebucto (Halifax). At the time of Rouse’s death at Portsmouth, Apr. 3, 1760, he was in command of the “Sutherland,” 50 guns. (Charnock, Biographia Navalis; Isaac J. Greenwood’s “First American built vessels in the British navy,” in the N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Reg., Oct., 1866, p. 323. There are notes on Rouse, with references, in Hist. Mag., i. 156, and N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 59; cf. also Drake’s Five Years’ French and Indian War, p. 240, and Nova Scotia Docs., ed. by Akins, p. 225.) Preble (N. E. H. and Gen. Reg., 1868, p. 396) collates contemporary authorities for a precise description of a “galley.” Such a ship was usually a “snow,” as the largest two-masted vessels were often called, and would seem to have carried all her guns on a continuous deck, without the higher tiers at the ends, which was customary with frigates built low only at the waist.
The “Cæsar,” of 20 guns, was commanded by Capt. Snelling, the third ranking provincial officer.
[959] Gov. Wolcott, of Connecticut, wrote to Gov. Hamilton, of Pennsylvania, that the secret of the success of the Louisbourg expedition lay in the fact that the besiegers were freeholders and the besieged mercenaries. (Pa. Archives, ii. p. 127.)
[960] Petitions of one Capt. John Lane, who calls himself the first man wounded in the siege, are in the Mass. Archives, and are printed in the Hist. Mag., xxi. 118.