Conference with the Penobscots, Dec. 3, 1741. (Mass. Archives, xxix. 376.)
“Projets sur la prise de l’Acadie, 1741.” (Parkman MSS. in Mass. Hist. Soc., New France, i. p. 1.)
Conference held at the Fort at St. George in the County of York, the 4th of August, 1742, between William Shirley, Governor, and the Chief Sachems and Captains of the Penobscott, Norridgewock, Pigwaket or Amiscogging or Saco, St. John’s, Bescommonconty or Amerescogging and St. Francis tribes of Indians, August, 1742. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 703; Brinley, i. no. 440. Cf. Williamson, ii. 209.)
D. King George’s, Shirley’s, or Five Years’ War.—France had declared war against England, Mar. 15, 1744 (Coll. de Manuscrits, Quebec, iii. p. 196), and the capitulation of Canso had taken place, May 24. (Ibid., iii. p. 201.) In July, 1744, Pepperrell and others, including some chiefs of the Five Nations, met the Penobscots at St. Georges and agreed to join in a treaty against the Cape Sable Indians. The Penobscots did not keep the appointment. War was declared against the Cape Sable and St. John’s Indians, Oct. 19, 1744. The General Court of Massachusetts offered a reward for scalps; and a proclamation was made for the enlistment of volunteers, Nov. 2, 1744. (Mass. Archives, xxxi. 506, 514; printed in W. W. Wheildon’s Curiosities of History, Boston, 1880, pp. 107, 109.)
The most brilliant event of the war was impending.
The French had begun the construction of elaborate defences at Louisbourg in 1720. A medal struck in commemoration of this beginning is described in the Transactions (1872-73, p. 75) of the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec.
It has always been open to question from whom came the first suggestion of the expedition of 1745. The immediate incentive seems to have been a belief, prompted by the reports of prisoners released from Canso, that Louisbourg could be captured, if attacked before relief could reach it from France. Judge Robert Auchmuty, of Roxbury, developed a plan for the capture in the Gentleman’s Magazine for July, 1745,—the same number in which was also printed the news of the attack and capture. When the paper was reprinted in a thin folio tract shortly afterwards, he or some one for him emphasized his claim to the suggestion in the title itself as follows: The importance of Cape Breton to the British Nation, humbly represented by Robert Auckmuty [sic], Judge, &c., in New England. N. B. Upon the plan laid down in this representation the island was taken by Commodore Warren and General Pepperill the 14th of June, 1745. London, 1745.[945]
It is claimed on behalf of William Vaughan that he suggested the expedition to Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, who in turn referred him to Governor Shirley. An anonymous tract, published in London in 1746, The Importance and Advantage of Cape Breton truly stated and impartially considered,[946] often assigned to William Bollan, and believed by some to have been inspired by Vaughan, says that Vaughan had “the honor of reviving, at least, if not of having been the original mover or projector,” of the expedition, since it is claimed that Lieutenant-Governor Clarke, of New York,[947] had suggested the attack to the Duke of Newcastle as early as 1743. Douglass (Summary, etc., i. 348) says that Shirley was taken with the “hint or conceit” of Vaughan, “a whimsical, wild projector.” Hutchinson says that Vaughan “was called the projector of the expedition,” and Belknap accords him the priority in common report.[948] When Thomas Prince came to dedicate his sermon, preached on the Thanksgiving day following the triumph, he inscribed it to Shirley as the “principal former and promoter of the expedition;” but the language hardly claims the origination, though Shirley was generally recognized as the moving spirit in its final determination.[949]