The expected assault of Louisbourg did not take place until 1758 and Boishebert, 124 who had retired to Canada, was ordered to repair thither. The Marquis de Montcalm wrote from Montreal to the French minister, April 10th, “Monsieur Boishebert, captain of troops of the colony, leaves in the course of a few days, if the navigation of the St. Lawrence is open, to proceed to the River St. John and thence to Louisbourg with a party of 600 men, including Canadians, Acadians and savages of Acadia.”
The governor and other officials at Quebec seem to have placed every confidence in the courage and capacity of Boishebert, who, it may be here mentioned received this year the Cross of St. Louis in recognition of his services in Acadia. “It is certain,” writes the Marquis de Vaudreuil, “that if, when the former siege of Louisbourg took place, the governor there had agreed to the proposal to send Marin thither with a force of Canadians and Indians the place would not have fallen, and if Boishebert were now to collect 200 Acadians and 200 St. John river Indians and the Micmacs he would be able to form a camp of 600 or 700 men, and Drucour could frequently place the besiegers between two fires.”
The expectations of Montcalm and de Vaudreuil as to the usefulness of Boishebert’s detachment in the defence of Louisbourg were doomed to disappointment, for Boishebert did not arrive at Louisbourg until near the end of the siege and with forces not one-third of the number that Drucour had been led to expect. Two depots of provisions had been placed in the woods for the use of the detachment, but the fact that Boishebert had only about 120 Acadians and a few Indians in addition to a handful of regulars, entirely frustrated Drucour’s design of harrassing the attacking English by a strong demonstration in their rear. About twenty of Boishebert’s Indians were engaged in a skirmish with the English and two of their chiefs having fallen the rest were so discouraged that they returned to their villages. Boishebert himself had a few unimportant skirmishes with outlying parties of the English, and then came the news of the surrender of Louisbourg. He immediately sent away the sick of his detachment, set fire to a thousand cords of wood and a quantity of coal to prevent its falling into the hands of the enemy, and on the 29th July set out on his return to the St. John river. The English made a lively but fruitless pursuit.
Boishebert left his sick at Miramichi, and having sent sixty prisoners, whom he had taken on various occasions, to Quebec, he then took part in an expedition against Fort George, on the coast of Maine, where he gained more honor than at the seige of Louisbourg.[36] He returned to Quebec in November, and about the same time there was an exodus from the River St. John, both of Acadians and Indians, the reason for which the next chapter will explain. From this time the Sieur de Boishebert ceases to be an actor in the events on the St. John, and becomes merely an on-looker.
MAJOR GENERAL ROBERT MONCKTON.