A half-century of conflict. France and England in North America. Part ...

1745.] THE NEW ENGLAND CAMP. 103of matted evergreens. This would have required aweek or more. The alternative was an escalade, inwhich the undisciplined assailants would no doubthave met a bloody rebuff. Thus this Grand Battery,which, says Wolcott, "is in fact a fort," might atleast have been held long enough to save the munitionsand stores, and effectually disable the cannon,which supplied the English with the only artillerythey had, competent to the work before them.Thehasty abandonment of this important post was notDuchambon's only blunder, but itwas the worst ofthem all.On the night after their landing, the New Englandmen slept in the woods, wet or dry, with or withoutblankets, as the case might be, and in the morningset themselves to encamping with as much order asthey were capable of. A brook ran down from thehills and entered the sea two miles or more from thetown. The ground on each side, though rough, washigh and dry, and here most of the regiments madetheir quarters, — Willard's,Moulton's, and Moore'son the east side, and Burr's and Pepperrell's on thewest.Those on the east, in some cases, saw fit to extendthemselves towards Louisbourg as far as the edgeof the intervening marsh, but were soon forced backto a safer position by the cannon-balls of the fortress,which came bowling amongst them. This marshwas that green, flat sponge of mud and moss thatstretched from this point to the glacis of Louisbourg.There was great want of tents, for material to make