After so much waste and folly as had marked the conduct of the war in
Europe, it is good to hear the tale of the capture of Louisburg. It was an
adventure which gave the colonists merited confidence in themselves, and
the character of the little army, and the management of the campaign, were
an excellent and suggestive dress rehearsal of the great drama of thirty
years later. The army was a combination of Yankees with arms in their
hands to effect an object eminently conducive to the common welfare. For
Louisburg was the key to the St. Lawrence, it commanded the fisheries, and
it threatened Acadia, or rather Nova Scotia, which was inhabited chiefly
by Bretons, liable to afford succor to their belligerent brethren. The
fort had been built, after the close of the former war, by those who had
preferred not to live under the government of the House of Hanover, on the
eastern extremity of the island called Cape Breton, itself lying northeast
of the Nova Scotian promontory. The site was good for defense, and the
fortifications, scientifically designed, were held to be impregnable. Had
Louisburg rested content with being strong, it might have been allowed to
remain at peace; but at the beginning of the war, and before the frontier
people in Nova Scotia had heard of it, a French party swooped down from
Louisburg on the settlement at Canso (the gut between Cape Breton and Nova
Scotia), destroyed all that was destructible, and carried eighty men as
prisoners of war to their stronghold. After keeping them there during the
summer, these men were paroled and went to Boston. This was a mistake on
the Louisburgers' part; for the men had made themselves well acquainted
with the fortifications and the topography of the neighborhood, and placed
this useful information at the disposal of William Shirley, a lawyer of
ability, who was afterward governor of the colony, and a warrior of some
note. It was Shirley's opinion that Louisburg must be taken, and the idea
immediately became popular. It was the main topic of discussion in Boston,
and all over New England, during the autumn and winter; Massachusetts
decided that it could be done, and that she could do it, though the help