1758
The ten years of the second French regime in Louisbourg were divided into very different halves. During the first five years, from 1749 to 1753, the mighty rivals were as much at peace, all over their conflicting frontiers, as they ever had been in the past. But from 1754 to 1758 a great and, this time, a decisive war kept drawing continually nearer, until its strangling coils at last crushed Louisbourg to death.
Three significant events marked 1749, the first of the five peaceful years. Louisbourg was handed over to its new French garrison; the British founded Halifax; and the Imperial government indemnified New England in full for the siege of 1745. Halifax was intended partly as a counterpoise to Louisbourg, and partly as a place-d'armes for one of the two local footholds of British sea-power, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, which, between them, narrowed the French line of communication with Canada into a single precarious strait. The New England indemnity was meant, in the first instance, to be a payment for service done. But it was also intended to soften colonial resentment at the giving up of Louisbourg. A specially gracious royal message was sent to 'The Council and Assembly' of Massachusetts, assuring them, 'in His Majesty's name, that their conduct will always entitle them, in a particular manner, to his Royal favour and protection.' This message, however, did not reconcile the Provincial army to the disappointment of their own expectations. Nor did it dispose the colonies in general to be any the more amenable to government from London. They simply regarded the indemnity as the skinflint payment of an overdue debt, and the message as no more than the thanks they had well deserved. But the money was extremely welcome to people who would have been bankrupt without it. Nearly a quarter of a million sterling was sent out in 217 cases of Spanish dollars and 100 barrels of coppers, which were driven through the streets of Boston in 27 trucks.
The next three years in Louisbourg were completely uneventful. The town resumed its former life, but in a still more makeshift fashion. Nobody knew how long the truce would last; and nobody wanted to take root commercially in a place that might experience another violent change at any time. Nevertheless, smuggling flourished as vigorously as before. British shipping did most of it. Many vessels came from England, many from Boston, some, and very active ones, from Halifax. Joshua Mauger smuggled from France to Louisbourg, from Louisbourg to 'Mauger's Beach' near Halifax, and from Halifax all over Acadia and the adjacent colonies. He also supplied the Micmacs with scalping-knives and tomahawks for use against his own countrymen. He died, a very rich man, in England, leaving his fortune to his daughter, who, with her spendthrift husband, the Duc de Bouillon, was guillotined during the French Revolution.
The officials were naturally affected by the same uncertainty, which made them more than ever determined to get rich and go home. The intendant Bigot was promoted to Quebec, there to assist his country's enemies by the worst corruption ever known in Canada. But the new intendant, Prevost, though a man of very inferior talent, did his best to follow Bigot's lead.
French regulars still regarded the Louisbourg routine as their most disgusting duty. But it became more tolerable with the increase of the garrison. The fortifications were examined, reported on, repaired, and extended. The engineers, like all the other Frenchmen connected with unhappy Louisbourg, Bigot alone excepted, were second- and third-rate men; and the actual work was done as badly as before. But, on the whole, the place was strengthened, especially by a battery near the lighthouse. With this and the Island Battery, one on either side of the narrow entrance, which the Royal Battery faced directly, almost a hundred guns could be brought to bear on any vessels trying to force their way in.
The end of the five years' truce was marked by voluminous reports and elaborate arguments to prove how well Louisbourg was being governed, how admirably the fortifications had been attended to (with the inadequate means at the intendant's disposal), and how desirable it was, from every point of view, for the king to spend a great deal more money all round in the immediate future. Fisheries, shipbuilding, fortification, Indians, trade, religion, the naval and military situation, were all represented as only needing more money to become quite perfect. Louisbourg was correctly enough described as an indispensable link between France and the long chain of French posts in the valleys of the Mississippi and the St Lawrence. But less well explained in America and less well understood in Europe was the fact that the separate military chains in Old France and New could never hold an oversea dominion unless a naval chain united them. Some few Frenchmen understood this thoroughly. But most did not. And France, as a whole, hoped that a vigorous offensive on land would more than counterbalance whatever she might lose by an enforced defensive on the sea.
In 1754 Washington's first shot beyond the Alleghanies broke the hollow truce between the French and British colonies, whose lines of expansion had once more inevitably crossed each other's path. This proved to be the beginning of the last 'French and Indian War' in American history, of that 'British Conquest of Canada' which formed part of what contemporary Englishmen called the 'Maritime War,' and of that great military struggle which continental Europe called the 'Seven Years' War.'
The year 1755 saw Braddock's Defeat in the west, the battle of Lake George in the centre, and two pregnant events in the east, one on either side of Louisbourg—the expulsion of the Acadians, and the capture by Boscawen of two French men-of-war with several hundred soldiers who were to reinforce the army that was soon to be commanded by Montcalm.
The next year, 1756, saw the formal declaration of war in Europe, its continued prosecution in America, and the taking of Oswego, which was the first of Montcalm's four victories against the overwhelming British. But Louisbourg still remained untouched.