Few went to bed that last French night in Louisbourg. All responsible officials were busy with duties, reports, and general superintendence. The townsfolk and soldiery were restless and inclined to drown their humiliation in the many little cabarets, which stood open all night. A very different place, the parish church, was also kept open, and for a very different purpose. Many hasty marriages were performed, partly from a wholly groundless fear of British licence, and partly because those who wished to remain in Cape Breton thought they would not be allowed to do so unless they were married.
Precisely at eight the next morning Major Farquhar drew up his grenadiers in front of the West Gate, which was immediately surrendered to him. No one but the officers concerned witnessed this first ceremony. But the whole population thronged every point of vantage round the Esplanade to see the formal surrender at noon. All the British admirals and generals were present on parade as Drucour stepped forward, saluted, and handed his sword to Boscawen. His officers followed his example. Then the troops laid down their arms, in the ranks as they stood, many dashing down their muskets with a muttered curse.
The French—naval, military, and civilian—were soon embarked. The curse of Louisbourg followed most of them, in one form or another. The combatants were coldly received when they eventually returned to France, in spite of their gallant defence, and in spite of their having saved Quebec for that campaign. Several hundreds of the inhabitants were shipwrecked and drowned. One transport was abandoned off the coast of Prince Edward Island, with the loss of two hundred lives. Another sprang a leak as she was nearing England; whereupon, to their eternal dishonour, the crew of British merchant seamen took all the boats and started to pull off alone. The three hundred French prisoners, men, women, and children, crowded the ship's side and begged that, if they were themselves to be abandoned, their priest should be saved. A boat reluctantly put back for him. Then, leaving the ship to her fate, the crew pulled for Penzance, where the people had just been celebrating the glorious victory of Louisbourg.
The French loss had been enough without this. About one in five of all the combatants had been hit. Twice as many were on the sick list. Officers and men, officials and traders, fishermen and other inhabitants, all lost something, in certain cases everything they had; and it was to nothing but the sheer ruin of all French power beside the American Atlantic that Madame Drucour waved her long white scarf in a last farewell.
France was stung to the quick. Her sea link gone, she feared that the whole of Canada would soon be won by the same relentless British sea-power, which was quite as irresistible as it was ubiquitous in the mighty hands of Pitt. So deeply did her statesmen feel her imminent danger on the sea, and resent this particular British triumph in the world-wide 'Maritime War,' that they took the unusual course of sending the following circular letter to all the Powers of Europe:
We are advised that Louisbourg capitulated to the
English on July 26, We fully realize the consequences
of such a grave event. But we shall redouble our
efforts to repair the misfortune.
All commercial nations ought now to open their eyes
to their own interests and join us in preventing the
absolute tyranny which England will soon exercise on
every sea if a stop be not put to her boundless avarice
and ambition.
For a century past the Powers of Europe have been
crying out against France for disturbing the balance
of power on the Continent. But while England was
artfully fomenting this trouble she was herself engaged
in upsetting that balance of power at sea without
which these different nations' independent power on
land cannot subsist. All governments ought to give
their immediate and most serious attention to this
subject, as the English now threaten to usurp the
whole world's seaborne commerce for themselves.
While the French were taken up with unavailing protests and regrets the British were rejoicing with their whole heart. Their loss had been small. Only a twentieth of their naval and military total had been killed or wounded, or had died from sickness, during the seven weeks' siege. Their gain had been great. The one real fortress in America, the last sea link between Old France and New, the single sword held over their transatlantic shipping, was now unchallengeably theirs.
The good news travelled fast. Within three weeks of the surrender the dispatches had reached England. Defeats, disasters, and exasperating fiascos had been common since the war began. But at last there was a genuine victory, British through and through, won by the Army and Navy together, and won over the greatest of all rivals, France. 'When we lost Minorca,' said the London Chronicle, just a month after the surrender, 'a general panic fell upon the nation; but now that Louisbourg is taken our streets echo with triumph and blaze with illuminations.' Loyal addresses poured in from every quarter. The king stood on the palace steps to receive the eleven captured colours; and then, attended by the whole court, went in state to the royal thanksgiving service held in St Paul's Cathedral.
The thanks of parliament were voted to Amherst and Boscawen. Boscawen received them in person, being a member of the House of Commons. The speaker read the address, which was couched in the usual verbiage worked up by one of the select committees employed on such occasions. But Boscawen replied, as men of action should, with fewer words and much more force and point: 'Mr Speaker, Sir, I am happy to have been able to do my duty. I have no words to express my sense of the distinguished reward that has been conferred upon me by this House; nor can I thank you, Sir, enough for the polite and elegant manner in which you have been pleased to convey its resolution to me.'
The American colonists in general rejoiced exceedingly that Louisbourg and all it meant had been exterminated. But, especially in New England, their joy was considerably tempered by the reflection that the final blow had been delivered without their aid, and that the British arms had met with a terrible reverse at Ticonderoga, where the American militia had outnumbered the old-country regulars by half as much again. Nevertheless Boston built a 'stately bonfire,' which made a 'lofty and prodigious blaze'; while Philadelphia, despite its parasitic Quakers, had a most elaborate display of fireworks representing England, Louisbourg, the siege, the capture, the triumph, and reflected glory generally.