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

^1745.] IRREGULAR OPERATIONS. 107and rocky ground swept by the French artillery.This fifth battery, called the Northwest, or Titcomb's,proved most destructive to the fortress.^All these operations were accomplished with theutmost ardor and energy, but with a scorn of ruleand precedent that astonished and bewildered theFrench. The raw New England men went theirown way, laughed at trenches and zigzags, and persistedin trusting their lives to the night and the fog.Several writers say that the English engineer Bastidetried to teach them discretion ;but this could hardlybe, for Bastide, whose station was Annapolis, didnot reach Louisbourg till the fifth of June, whenthe batteries were finished, and the siege was nearlyended. A recent French writer makes the curiousassertion that it was one of the ministers, or armychaplains, who took upon him the vain task ofinstruction in the art of war on this occasion.This ignorant and self-satisfied recklessnesshave cost the besiegers dear ifmightthe French, instead ofbeing perplexed and startled at the novelty oftheir proceedings, had taken advantage of it; butDuchambon and some of his officers, rememberingthe mutiny of the past winter, feared to make sorties,lest the soldiers might desert or take part with the1 Journal of the Siege, appended to Shirley's report to Newcastle;Duchambon an Ministre, 2 Septemhre, 1745; Lettre d'un Habitant;Pomeroy, etc.2 Ferland, Cours d'Histoire dti Canada, ii. 477. " L'ennemi nenous attaquoit point dans les formes, et ne pratiquoit point aucunretranchement pour ee couvrir." — Habitant de Louisbourg.