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

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

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1745.] RELIGIOUS ZEAL. 113truant disposition, it is not surpris<strong>in</strong>g that thebesiegers now <strong>and</strong> then lost their scalps at the h<strong>and</strong>s<strong>of</strong> prowl<strong>in</strong>g Indians who <strong>in</strong>fested theneighborhood.Yet through all these gambols ran an undertow <strong>of</strong>enthusiasm, born <strong>in</strong> bra<strong>in</strong>s still fevered from the"Great Awaken<strong>in</strong>g." The New Engl<strong>and</strong> soldier, agrowth <strong>of</strong> sectarian hotbeds, fancied that he wasdo<strong>in</strong>g the work <strong>of</strong> God. The army was Israel, <strong>and</strong>the French were Canaanitish idolaters. Red-hotCalv<strong>in</strong>ism, act<strong>in</strong>g through generations, had modifiedthe transplanted Englishman ; <strong>and</strong> the descendant <strong>of</strong>the Puritans was never so well pleased as whenteach<strong>in</strong>g their duty to other people, whether by pen,voice, or bombshells. The ragged artillerymen, batter<strong>in</strong>gthe walls <strong>of</strong> papistical Louisbourg, flatteredthemselves with the notion that they were champions<strong>of</strong> gospel truth.Barefoot <strong>and</strong> tattered, they toiled on with <strong>in</strong>domitablepluck <strong>and</strong> cheerfulness, do<strong>in</strong>g the work whichoxen could not do, with no comfort but their dailydram <strong>of</strong> New Engl<strong>and</strong> rum, as they plodded tln-oughthe marsh <strong>and</strong> over rocks, dragg<strong>in</strong>g the ponderousguns through fog <strong>and</strong> darkness.Their spirit couldnot save them from the effects <strong>of</strong> excessive fatigue<strong>and</strong> exposure. They were ravaged with diarrhoea<strong>and</strong> fever, tillfifteen hundred men were at one timeon the sick-list, <strong>and</strong> at another, Pepperrell reportedthat <strong>of</strong> the four thous<strong>and</strong> only about twenty-onehundred were fit for duty.^ Nearly all at last recov-VOL. II. — 81 Pepperrell to Warren, 28 May, 1745.

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