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

106 LOUISBOURG BESIEGED. [1745.querable spirit, and within four days had planted abatteiy of six guns on Green Hill, which was abouta mile from the King's Bastion of Louisbourg. Inanother week they had dragged four twenty-twopoundcannon and ten coehorns — gravely called"cowhorns " by the bucolic Pomeroy — six or sevenhundred yards farther, and planted them within easyTwo of the cannon burst, andrange of the citadel.were replaced by four more and a large mortar, whichburst in its turn, and Shirley was begged to sendanother. Meanwhile a battery, chiefly of coehorns,had been planted on a hillock four hundred and fortyyards from the West Gate, where it greatly annoyedthe French; and on the next night an advancedbattery was placed just opposite the same gate, andscarcely two hundred and fifty yards from it. ThisWest Gate, the principal gate of Louisbourg, openedupon the tract of high, firm ground that lay on theleft of the besiegers, between the marsh and theharbor, an arm of which here extended westwardbeyond the town, into what was called the Barachois,a salt pond formed by a projecting spit of sand.Onthe side of the Barachois farthest from the town wasa hillock on which stood the house of an hahitantnamed Martissan. Here, on the twentieth of May,a fifth battery was planted, consisting of two ofthe French forty-two-pounders taken in the GrandBattery, to which three others were afterwards added.Each of these heavy pieces was dragged to its destinationby a team of three hundred men over rough