Drake Samuel Adams
The Taking of Louisburg 1745
III
LOUISBURG TO SOLVE IMPORTANT POLITICAL AND MILITARY PROBLEMS
Having glanced at the purely military exigencies, which had at length forced themselves upon the attention of French statesmen, and having gone over the ground with the view of impressing its topographical features more firmly in our minds, we may now look at the underlying political and economic causes, out of which the French court finally matured a scheme for the maintenance of their colonial possessions in Canada in the broadest sense.
French Colonial System.
Its Unsatisfactory Workings.
In creating Louisburg the court of Versailles had far more extended views than the building of a strong fortress to guard the gateway into Canada would of itself imply. Unquestionably that was a powerful inducement to the undertaking; but, in the beginning, it certainly appears to have been only a secondary consideration. For a long time the condition of affairs in the colony had been far from satisfactory, while the future promised little that was encouraging. Compared with the English colonies, its progress was slow, irregular, and unstable. Agriculture was greatly neglected. So were manufactures. The home government had exercised, from the first, a guardianship that in the long run proved fatal to the growth of an independent spirit. There were swarms of governmental and ecclesiastical dependents who laid hold of the fattest perquisites, or else, through munificent and inconsiderate grants obtained from the crown, enjoyed monopolies of trade to the exclusion of legitimate competition. These leeches were sucking the life-blood out of Canada. So far, then, from being a self-sustaining colony, the annual disbursements of the crown were looked to as a means to make good the deficiency arising between what the country produced and what it consumed. Without protection the English colonies steadily advanced in wealth and population; with protection, Canada, settled at about the same time, scarcely held her own.
Two very able and sagacious men, the intendants Raudot, were the first who had the courage to lay before the court of Versailles the true condition of affairs, and the ability to suggest a remedy for it.
The Fur Trade Monopoly.
These intendants represented that the fur trade had always engrossed the attention of the Canadians, to the exclusion of everything else. Not only had the beaver skin become the recognized standard for all exchanges of values, but the estimated annual product of the country was based upon it, very much as we should reckon the worth of the grain crop to the United States to-day. It was also received in payment for revenues. Now, after a long experience, what was the result of an exclusive attention to this traffic? It was shown that the fur trade enriched no one except a few merchants, who left the country as soon as they had acquired the means of living at their ease in Old France. It had, therefore, no element whatever of permanent advantage to the colony.
Danger of Exclusive Attention to it.
It was also shown that this fur trade was by no means sufficient to sustain a colony of such importance as Canada unquestionably might become under a different system of management; for whether the beaver should finally become extinct through the greed of the traders, or so cheapened by glutting the market abroad as to lose its place in commerce entirely, it was evident that precisely the same result would be reached. In any case, the business was a precarious one. It limited the number of persons who could be profitably employed; it bred them up to habits of indolence and vice without care for the future; and it kept them in ignorance and poverty to the last. But, what was worst of all, this all-engrossing pursuit kept the population from cultivating the soil, the true and only source of prosperity to any country.
Other cogent reasons were given, but these most conclusively set forth what a mercantile monopoly having its silent partners in the local government and church, as well as in the royal palace itself, had been able to do in the way of retarding the development of the great native resources of Canada. It was so ably done that no voice was raised against it. And with this most lucid and fearless exposé of the puerile use thus far made of those resources the memorialist statesmen hoped to open the king’s eyes.
The two Raudots offer a Remedy.
They now proposed to wholly reorganize this unsound commercial system by directing capital and labor into new channels. Such natural productions of the country as masts, boards, ship-timber, flax, hemp, plaster, iron and copper ores, dried fish, whale and seal oils, and salted meats, might be exported, they said, with profit to the merchant and advantage to the laboring class, provided a suitable port were secured, at once safe, commodious, and well situated for collecting all these commodities, and shipping them abroad.
Cape Breton brought to Notice.
To this end, these intendants now first brought to notice the advantages of Cape Breton for such an establishment. Strangely enough, up to this time little or no attention had been paid to this island. Three or four insignificant fishing ports existed on its coasts, but as yet the whole interior was a shaggy wilderness, through which the Micmac Indians roamed as freely as their fathers had done before Cartier ascended the St. Lawrence. Its valuable deposits of coal and gypsum lay almost untouched in their native beds; its stately timber trees rotted where they grew; its unrivalled water-ways, extending through the heart of the island, served no better purpose than as a highway for wandering savages.
Acadia to be helped.
By creating such a port as the Raudots suggested, the voyage from France would be shortened one half, and the dangerous navigation of the St. Lawrence altogether avoided, since, instead of large ships having to continue their voyages to Quebec, the carrying trade of the St. Lawrence would fall to coasting vessels owned in the colony. A strong hand would also be given to the neighbor province, the fertile yet unprotected Acadia, which might thus be preserved against the designs of the English, while a thriving trade in wines, brandies, linens, and rich stuffs might reasonably be expected to spring up with the neighboring English colonies.
A Military and Naval Arsenal proposed.
These were considerations of such high national importance as to at once secure for the project an attention which purely strategic views could hardly be expected to command. And yet, the forming of a military and naval depot, strong enough to guarantee the security of the proposed port, and in which the king’s ships might at need refit, or take refuge, or sally out upon an enemy, was an essential feature of this elaborate plan, every detail of which was set forth with systematic exactness. For seven years the project was pressed upon the French court. War, however, then engaging the whole attention of the ministry, the execution of this far-seeing project, which had in view the demands of peace no less than of war, was unavoidably put off until the peace of Utrecht, in 1713, by giving a wholly new face to affairs in the New World, compelled France to take energetic measures for the security of her colonial possessions.
Peace of Utrecht.
By this treaty of Utrecht France surrendered to England all Nova Scotia, all her conquests in Hudson’s Bay, with Placentia, her most important establishment in Newfoundland. At the same time the treaty left Cape Breton to France, an act of incomparable folly on the part of the English plenipotentiaries who, with the map lying open before them, thus handed over to Louis the key of the St. Lawrence and of Canada. No one now doubts that the French king saw in this masterpiece of stupidity a way to retrieve all he had lost at a single stroke. The English commissioners, it is to be presumed, saw nothing.
English Harbor chosen.
Having the right to fortify, under the treaty, it only remained for the French court to determine which of the island ports would be best adapted to the purpose, St. Anne, on the north, or English Harbor on the south-east coast. St. Anne was a safe and excellent haven, easily made impregnable, with all the materials requisite for building and fortifying to be found near the spot. Behind it lay the fertile côtes of the beautiful Bras d’Or, with open water stretching nearly to the Straits of Canso. On the other hand, besides being surrounded by a sterile country, materials of every kind, except timber, must be transported to English Harbor at a great increase of labor and cost. More could be done at St. Anne with two thousand francs, it was said, than with two hundred thousand at the rival port. But the difficulty of taking ships of large tonnage into St. Anne through an entrance so narrow that only one could pass in or out at the same time, finally gave the preference to English Harbor, which had a ship channel of something less than two hundred fathoms in breadth, a good anchorage, and plenty of beach room for erecting stages and drying fish. It was, moreover, sooner clear of ice in spring.
Name changed to Louisburg.
The first thing done at Cape Breton was to change the old, time-honored name of the island – the very first, it is believed, which signalled the presence of Europeans in these waters – to the unmeaning one of Ile Royale. English Harbor also took the name of Louisburg, in honor of the reigning monarch. Royalty having thus received its dues, the work of construction now began in earnest.
IV
RÉSUMÉ OF EVENTS TO THE DECLARATION OF WAR
We will now rapidly sketch the course of events which led to war on both sides of the Atlantic.
Colonists provided for.
Having been obliged to surrender Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the French court determined to make use of their colonists in those places for building up Louisburg.
Acadians will not emigrate.
In the first place, M. de Costebello, who had just lost his government of the French colony of Placentia, in Newfoundland, under the terms of the treaty, was ordered to take charge of the proposed new colony on Cape Breton, and in accord also with the provisions of that treaty, the French inhabitants of Newfoundland were presently removed from that island to Cape Breton. But the Acadians of Nova Scotia who had been invited, and were fully counted upon to join the other colonists, now showed no sort of disposition to do so. In their case the French authorities had reckoned without their host. These always shrewd Acadians were unwilling to abandon the fertile and well-tilled Acadian valleys, which years of toil had converted into a garden, to begin a new struggle with the wilderness in order to carry out certain political schemes of the French court. Though patriots, they were not simpletons. So they sensibly refused to stir, although their country had been turned over to the English. In this way the French authorities were unexpectedly checked in their first efforts to secure colonists of a superior class for their new establishment in Cape Breton.
How strange are the freaks of destiny! Could these simple Acadian peasants have foreseen what was in store for them at no distant day, at the hands of their new masters, who can doubt that, like the Israelites of old, driving their flocks before them, they too would have departed for the Promised Land with all possible speed?
A Thorn in the Side of the English.
Finding them thus obstinate, it was determined to make them as useful as possible where they were, and as a reconquest of Acadia was one of those contingencies which Louisburg was meant to turn into realities, whenever the proper side of the moment should arrive, nothing was neglected that might tend to the holding of these Acadians firmly to their ancient allegiance; to keeping alive their old antipathies; to arousing their fears for their religion, or to strongly impressing them with the belief that their legitimate sovereign would soon drive these English invaders from the land, never to return. For the moment the king’s lieutenants were obliged to content themselves with planting this thorn in the side of the English.
Why called Neutrals.
Acting upon the advice of the crafty Saint Ovide, De Costebello’s successor, the Acadians refused to take the oath of allegiance proffered them by the British governor of Nova Scotia – though they had refused to emigrate they said they would not become British subjects. When threatened they sullenly hinted at an uprising of the Micmacs, who were as firmly attached to the French interest as the Acadians themselves. The governor, therefore, prudently forbore to press matters to a crisis, all the more readily because he was powerless to enforce obedience; and thus it came to pass that the French inhabitants of Nova Scotia, under English dominion, first took the name of neutrals.
Victims to French Policy.
Perceiving at last how they were being ground between friend and foe, the Acadians began hoarding specie, and to leave off improving their houses and lands. A little later they are found applying to the Governor-General of Canada for grants of land in the old colony, to which they might remove, and where they could dwell in peace, for they somehow divined that they must be the losers whenever fresh hostilities should break out between the French and English, if, as it seemed inevitable, the war should involve them in its calamities. But that astute official returned only evasive answers to their petition. His royal master had other views, to the successful issue of which his lieutenants were fully pledged, and so it is primarily to French policy, after all, that the wretched Acadians owed their exile from the land of their fathers. What followed was merely the logical result.
But in consequence of their first refusal to remove to Louisburg only a handful of the Micmacs responded to Costebello’s call, by pitching their wigwams on the skirt of the embryo city.
Laborers from the Galleys.
Laborers were wanted next. For the procuring of these the Governor-General of Canada, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, hit upon the novel idea of transporting every year from France those prisoners who were sentenced to the galleys for smuggling. They were to come out to Canada subject to the severe penalty of never again being permitted to return to their native land, “for which,” said the cunning marquis, “I undertake to answer.”
Lord Bacon, in one of his essays, makes the following comments upon this iniquitous method of raising up colonies: “It is a shameful and unblessed thing,” he says, “to take the scum of people, and wicked condemned men to be the people with whom you plant; and not only so, but it spoileth the plantations; for they will ever live like rogues, and not fall to work, but be lazy, and do mischief and spend victuals: and be quickly weary, and then certify over to their country to the discredit of the plantation.”
Meanwhile, the sceptre that had borne such potent sway in Europe dropped from the lifeless hand of Louis the Great, to be taken up by the “crowned automaton,” Louis XV.
Strength of Louisburg.
Pursuant to the policy thus outlined, which had no less in view than the rehabilitation of Canada, the recovery of Nova Scotia, the mastery of the St. Lawrence, and the eventual restoration of French prestige in America, France had in thirty years created at Louisburg a fortress so strong that it was commonly spoken of as the Dunkirk of America. To do this she had lavished millions.1 Beyond question it was the most formidable place of arms on the American continent, far exceeding in this respect the elaborate but antiquated strongholds of Havana, Panama, and Carthagena, all of which had been built and fortified upon the old methods of attack and defence as laid down by the engineers of a previous century: while Louisburg had the important advantage of being planned with all the skill that the best military science of the day and the most prodigal expenditure could command. When their work was done, the French engineers boastingly said that Louisburg could be defended by a garrison of women.
Armament of Louisburg.
The fortress, and its supporting batteries, mounted nearly one hundred and fifty pieces of artillery on its walls, some of which were of the heaviest metal then in use. It was deemed, and indeed proved itself, during the progress of two sieges, absolutely impregnable to an attack by a naval force alone. From this stronghold Louis had only to stretch out a hand to seize upon Nova Scotia, or drive the New England fishermen from the adjacent seas.
In New England all these proceedings were watched with the keenest interest, for there, at least, if nowhere else, their true intent was so quickly foreseen, their consequences so fully realized, that the people were more and more confounded by the imbecility which had virtually put their whole fishery under French control.
As the situation in Europe was reflected on this side of the Atlantic, it is instructive to look there for the storm which, to the terror and dismay of Americans, was now darkly overspreading the continent.
War of the Austrian Succession.
The crowned gamblers of Europe had begun their costly game of the Austrian succession. Upon marching to invade Silesia, Frederick II., the neediest and most reckless gamester of them all, had said to the French ambassador, “I am going, I believe, to play your little game: and if I should throw doublets we will share the stakes.” Fortune favored this great king of a little kingdom. He won his first throw, seeing which, for she was at first only a looker-on, France immediately sent two armies into Bavaria to the Elector’s aid. This move was not unexpected in London. Ever since England had forced hostilities with Spain, in 1740, it was a foregone conclusion that the two branches of the House of Bourbon would make common cause, whenever a favorable opportunity should present itself. England now retaliated by voting a subsidy to Maria Theresa, and by taking into pay some sixteen thousand of King George’s petted Hanoverians, who were destined to fight the French auxiliary contingent. England and France were thus casting stones at each other over the wall, or, as Horace Walpole cleverly put it, England had the name of war with Spain without the game, and war with France without the name.
English defeated in Flanders.
It was inevitable that the war should now settle down into a bitter struggle between the two great rivals, France and England. On the 20th of March, 1744, the court of Versailles formally declared war. England followed on the 31st. Flanders became the battle-field between a hundred and twenty-five thousand combatants, led, respectively, by the old Count Maurice de Saxe and the young Duke of Cumberland. In May, 1745, the French marshal suddenly invested Tournay,2 the greatest of all the Flemish fortresses. The Duke of Cumberland marched to its relief, gave battle, and was thoroughly beaten at Fontenoy. This disaster closed the campaign in the Old World. It left the English nation terribly humiliated in the eyes of Europe, while France, by this brilliant feat of arms, fully reasserted her leadership in Continental affairs.
Situation in New England.
But what had been a sort of Satanic pastime in the Old World became a struggle for life in the New. The people of New England, being naturally more keenly alive to the dangers menacing their trade, than influenced by a romantic sympathy with the absurd quarrels about the Austrian succession, anxiously watched for the first signal of the coming conflict. They knew the enemy’s strength, and they were as fully aware of their own weaknesses. Still there was no flinching. The home government, being fully occupied with the affairs of the Continent, and with the political cabals of London, limited its efforts to arming a few forts in the colonies, and to keeping a few cruisers in the West Indian waters; but neither soldiers, arsenals, nor magazines were provided for the defence of these provinces, upon whom the enemy’s first and hardest blows might naturally be expected to fall, nor were such other measures taken to meet such an extraordinary emergency as its gravity would seem in reason to demand.
Luckily for them, the colonists had been taught in the hard school of experience that Providence helps those who help themselves. To their own resources they therefore turned with a vigor and address manifesting a deep sense of the magnitude of the crisis now confronting them.
French seize Canso.
The proclamation of war was not published in Boston until the 2d of June, 1744. Having earlier intelligence, the French at Louisburg had already begun hostilities by making a descent upon Canso,3 a weak English post situated at the outlet of the strait of that name, and so commanding it, and within easy striking distance of Louisburg. News of this was brought to Boston so seasonably that Governor Shirley had time to throw a re-enforcement of two hundred men into Annapolis, by which that post was saved; for the French, after their exploit at Canso, soon made an attempt upon Annapolis, where they were held in check until a second re-enforcement obliged them to retire.
Captain Ryal sent to London, November, 1744.
Governor Shirley lost no time in notifying the ministry of what had happened, and he particularly urged upon their attention the defenceless state of Nova Scotia, where Annapolis alone held a semi-hostile population in check. To the end that the situation might be more fully understood, he sent an officer, who had been taken at Canso, with the despatch.
At this time the incompetent Duke of Newcastle held the post of prime minister. When he had read the despatch he exclaimed, “Oh, yes – yes – to be sure. Annapolis must be defended. – troops must be sent to Annapolis. Pray where is Annapolis? Cape Breton an island! wonderful! Show it me on the map. So it is, sure enough. My dear sir” (to the bearer of the despatch), “you always bring us good news. I must go tell the King that Cape Breton is an island.”
January, 1744.
It will be seen, later, that Shirley’s timely application to the ministry, on behalf of Nova Scotia, involved the fate of Louisburg itself. Orders were promptly sent out to Commodore Warren, who was in command of a cruising squadron in the West Indies, to proceed as early as possible to Nova Scotia, for the purpose of protecting our settlements there, or of distressing the enemy, as circumstances might require.
Shirley himself had also written to Warren, requesting him to do this very thing, at the same time the ministry were notified, though it was yet too early to know the result of either application. All eyes were now opened to Louisburg’s dangerous power. But, come what might, Shirley was evidently a man who would leave nothing undone.
