The capture of Louisbourg and the question of the disposition of the island at the peace led to several expositions of its imagined value to the British Crown, among which may be named:—
The importance and advantage of Cape Breton considered, in a letter to a member of Parliament from an inhabitant of New England, London, 1746. (Brinley, no. 69.) This is signed “Massachusettensis.”[962]
Two letters concerning some farther advantages and improvements that may seem necessary to be made on the taking and keeping of Cape Breton, London, 1746. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 822.)
The importance and advantage of Cape Breton, truly stated and impartially considered. With proper maps, London, 1746. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 823.) The maps follow those of Bellin in Charlevoix. Its authorship is usually ascribed to William Bollan. (Sabin, ii. 6,215.)
The great importance of Cape Breton demonstrated and exemplified by extracts from the best writers, French and English, London, 1746. This is a plea against the surrender of it to the French. It is dedicated to Governor Shirley, and contains Charlevoix’s map and plan. (Carter-Brown, iii. no. 821.)
An accurate description of Cape Breton, Situation, Soil, Ports, etc., its Importance to France, but of how much greater it might have been to England; with an account of the taking of the city by the New England forces under General Pepperell in 1745, London, 1755.
Memoir of the principal transactions of the last war between the English and French in North America, from 1744 to the conclusion of the treaty at Aix-la-Chapelle, containing in particular an account of the importance of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton to both nations (3d ed., London, reprinted, Boston, 1758.)
Douglass (Summary, etc.), the general historian nearest the time, was an eager opponent of Shirley, and in his account of the expedition he ascribes to good luck the chief element in its success. He calls it “this infinitely rash New England Corporation adventure, though beyond all military or human probability successful.” (Summary, etc., 1751, ii. p. 11.) “Fortified towns are hard nuts to crack, and your teeth have not been accustomed to it,” wrote Benjamin Franklin from Philadelphia to his brother in Boston. (Franklin’s Works, vii. 16.)[963]
Accounts of the expedition enter necessarily into the more general narratives, like those of Hutchinson (Mass. Bay); Chalmers (Revolt, etc.); Minot (Massachusetts); Gordon (Amer. Rev.); Marshall (Washington); Bancroft (United States); Grahame (United States); Williamson (Hist. of Maine); Murdoch (Nova Scotia, ii. ch. 5); Haliburton (Nova Scotia); Stone (Sir Wm. Johnson, vol. i.); Palfrey (Compendious Hist. of New England, iv. ch. 9); Bury (Exodus of the Western Nations, ii. ch. 6); Gay (Pop. Hist. United States); Drake (Boston). The Memorial Hist. Boston (ii. 117) and Barry’s Massachusetts (ii. 140, etc.) give numerous references. Joel T. Headley has a popular narrative in Harper’s Monthly, xxviii. p. 354. Garneau (Hist. du Canada, 4th ed., ii. 190) offers the established French account. Cf. Lettre d’un habitant de Louisbourg contenant une relation exacte de la prise de l’Ile Royale par les Anglais, Quebec, 1745. (Sabin, x. no. 40,671.)[964]
The present condition of the site of Louisbourg is described by Parsons (Life of Pepperrell, 332); by Parkman (Montcalm and Wolfe); by J. G. Bourinot in his “The old forts of Acadia” in Canadian Monthly, v. 369; and in the Canadian Antiquarian, iv. 57.