The British amphibious force presented a striking contrast to this. Its naval and military parts worked together like the two branches of one United Service. The Army and Navy naturally understood each other better than the two services of less amphibious countries; and when a statesman like Pitt and a first lord of the Admiralty like Anson were together at headquarters there was no excuse for misunderstandings at the front. Boscawen and Amherst, both distinguished members of distinguished Service families, were the best of colleagues. Boscawen had somewhat over, Amherst a little under, 12,000 men. Boscawen's fleet comprised 39 sail, from a 90-gun ship of the line down to a 12-gun sloop. The British grand total therefore exceeded Drucour's by over three to one, counting mere numbers alone. If expert efficiency be taken, for the sake of a more exact comparison, it is not too much to say that the odds in favour of the British personnel and armament were really four to one.
On the other hand, the French had the walls of Louisbourg to redress the balance in their favour. These walls were the crucial factor in the problem. Both sides knew they were far from being impregnable. But how long could they withstand a regular siege? If for only one month, then they were useless as a protection to Quebec. If for two months, then Quebec and New France were safe until the following year.
Boscawen left England in February. Amherst followed separately. One of the three brigadier-generals in Amherst's army was Wolfe, of whom we shall hear more presently. The rendezvous was Halifax, where boat work and landing exercises were sedulously carried out by the troops. Towards the end of May Boscawen sailed out of Halifax, though Amherst had not yet arrived. They met at sea. The Dublin, which had brought Amherst across so slowly, then 'went very sickly into Halifax,' while Amherst joined Boscawen, and the whole fleet and convoy bore away for Louisbourg. The French had been expecting them for at least a month; as scouts kept appearing almost every day, while Hardy's squadron of nine sail had been maintaining a sort of open blockade.
On the night of June 1 the French look-outs in Gabarus Bay saw more lights than usual to the southward. Next morning Louisbourg was early astir, anxiously eager to catch the first glimpse of this great destroying armada, which for several expectant hours lay invisible and dread behind a curtain of dense fog. Then a light sea breeze came in from the Atlantic. The curtain drew back at its touch. And there, in one white, enormous crescent, all round the deep-blue offing, stood the mighty fleet, closing in for the final death-grip on its prey.
Nearly a whole week went by before the British landed. Each day the scouting boats and vessels stood in as close as possible along the shore. But they always found the smashing surf too high. At last, on the 8th, the whole army put off in three brigades of boats, supported by the frigates, which fired at the French defences. All three landing-places were threatened simultaneously, White Point, Flat Point, and Kennington Cove. These landing-places were, respectively, one, two, and four miles west of Louisbourg. The intervening ground mostly hid them from the ramparts, and they had to depend upon their own defences. Drucour had sent out two-thirds of his garrison to oppose the landing. Each point was protected by artillery and entrenchments. Eight guns were mounted and a thousand men stood guard over the quarter-mile of beach which lay between the two little surf-lashed promontories of Kennington Cove. But Wolfe's brigade made straight for shore. The French held their fire until the leading boats were well within short musket-shot. Then they began so furiously that Wolfe, whose tall, lank figure was most conspicuous as he stood up in the stern-sheets, waved his cane to make the boats sheer off.
It looked as if the first successful landing would have to be made elsewhere, a bitter disappointment to this young and ardent brigadier, whose command included the pick of the grenadiers, light infantry, and Highlanders. But three boatloads of light infantry pushed on against the inner point of the cove. Perhaps their officers turned their blind eye on Wolfe's signal, as Nelson did on Parker's recall at Copenhagen. But, whatever the reason, these three boats went in smash against the rocks and put their men ashore, drenched to the skin. Major Scott, commanding the light infantry and rangers, followed them at once. Then Wolfe, seeing they had gained a foothold where the point afforded them a little cover, signalled the whole brigade to land there in succession. He pushed his own boat through, jumped in waist-deep, and waded ashore.
This sudden change, quite unexpected by either friend or foe, greatly disconcerted the French. They attacked Major Scott, who withstood them with a handful of men till reinforcements came clambering up the rocks behind him. With these reinforcements came Wolfe, who formed the men into line and carried the nearest battery with the bayonet. The remaining French, seeing that Wolfe had effected a lodgment on their inner flank, were so afraid of being cut off from Louisbourg that they ran back and round towards the next position at Flat Point. But before they reached it they saw its own defenders running back, because the British were also landing at White Point. Here too the defences were abandoned as soon as the little garrison found itself faced by greatly superior numbers afloat and deserted by its fellow-garrisons ashore. The retreating French kept up a sort of running fight till they got under the covering fire of Louisbourg, when the pursuing British immediately drew off.
Considering the number of boats that were stove and the intensity of the first French fire, the British loss was remarkably small, only one hundred and nine killed, wounded, and drowned. The French loss was still less; but, in view of the difference between the respective grand totals, it was a good deal heavier in proportion.
That night the glare of a big fire inside the harbour showed that Drucour felt too weak to hold the Royal Battery. Unlike his incompetent predecessor, however, he took away everything movable that could be turned to good account in Louisbourg; and he left the works a useless ruin. The following day he destroyed and abandoned the battery at Lighthouse Point. Thus two fortifications were given up, one of them for the second time, before a single shot had been fired either from or against them. Time, labour, and expense had all gone for worse than nothing, as the positions were at once used by the enemy on each occasion. The wasted expense was of the usual kind-one half spent on inferior construction, the other pocketed by the Louisbourg officials. Drucour himself was not at all to blame, either for the way the works were built or the way in which they had to be abandoned. With odds of more than three to one against him, he had no men to spare for trying to keep the British at arm's length.
Amherst pitched his camp in a crescent two miles long, facing Louisbourg two miles off. His left overlooked the French squadron in the south-west harbour next to Louisbourg at the distance of a mile. His right rested on Flat Point. Thus Louisbourg itself was entirely surrounded both by land and sea; for the gaps left at the Royal Battery and Lighthouse Point were immediately seized by the British. Wolfe marched round the harbour on the 12th with 1,300 infantry and a strong detachment of artillery. The guns for the Royal Battery and other points inside the harbour were hauled into place by teams of about a hundred men each. Those for Lighthouse Point were sent round by sea, landed, with immense difficulty, more than a mile distant on the rock-bound shore, hauled up the cliff, and then dragged back over the roughest of ground to the battery. It was, in fact, a repetition of what the American militiamen had done in 1745. Wolfe worked incessantly, directing and encouraging his toiling men. The bluejackets seconded his efforts by doing even harder work. Their boats were often stove, and a catamaran was wrecked with a brass twenty-four pounder on board. But nothing could stop the perfect co-operation between the two halves of the single United Service. 'The Admiral and General,' wrote Wolfe, 'have carried on the public service with great harmony, industry, and union. Mr Boscawen has given all, and even more than we could ask of him. He has furnished arms and ammunition, pioneers, sappers, miners, gunners, carpenters, and boats.'