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

64 A MAD SCHEME. [1744.heads to waken them from their security. Theyexpected that both parties would merely stand on thedefensive, without taking part in this cruel war thathas set Europe in a blaze."Whatever might otherwise have beenthe dispositionof the " Bastonnais, " or New England people,the attacks on Canseau and Annapolis alarmed andexasperated them, and engendered in some heatedbrains a project of wild audacity.This was no lessthan the capture of Louisbourg, reputed the strongestfortress, French or British, in North America, withthe possible exception of Quebec, which owed itschief strength to nature, and not to art.Louisbourg was a standing menace to all the northernBritish colonies. It was the only French navalstation on the continent, and was such a haunt ofprivateers that it was called the American Dunkirk.It commanded the chief entrance of Canada, andthreatened to ruin the fisheries,which were nearly asvital to New England as was the fur-trade to NewFrance.The French government had spent twentyfiveyears in fortifying it, and the cost of its powerfuldefences — constructed after the system of Vauban —was reckoned at thirty million livres.This was the fortresswhich William Vaughan ofDamariscotta advised Governor Shirley to attackwith fifteen hundred raw New England militia.^1 Smollett says that the proposal came from Robert Auchmuty,judge of admiralty in Massachusetts. Hutchinson, Douglas, Belknap,and other well-informed writers ascribe the scheme to Vaughan,while Pepperrell says that it originated with Colonel John Brad-