h western extremity of
Newfoundland. Its position rendered the possession of it very material
to the commerce of France; and the facility with which the fisheries
might be annoyed from its ports, gave it an importance to which it
could not otherwise have been entitled. Thirty millions of
livres,[135] and the labour of twenty-five years, had been employed on
its fortifications. From its strength, and still more from the
numerous privateers that issued from its ports, it had been termed the
Dunkirk[136] of America. On this place, governor Shirley meditated an
attack.

[Footnote 135: About five and a half millions of dollars.]

[Footnote 136: Belknap.]

The prisoners taken at Canseau, and others who had been captured at
sea and carried to Louisbourg, were sent to Boston. The information
they gave, if it did not originally suggest this enterprise,
contributed greatly to its adoption. They said that Duvivier had gone
to France to solicit assistance for the conquest of Nova Scotia, in
the course of the ensuing campaign; and that the store ships from
France for Cape Breton, not having arrived on the coast until it was
blocked up with ice, had retired to the West Indies.

In several letters addressed to administration, governor Shirley
represented the danger to which Nova Scotia was exposed, and pressed
for naval assistance. These letters were sent by captain Ryal, an
officer of the garrison which had been taken at Canseau, whose
knowledge of Louisbourg, of Cape Breton, and of Nova Scotia, enabled
him to make such representations to the lords of the admiralty, as
were calculated to promote the views of the northern colonies.

The governor was not disappointed. Orders were dispatched to commodore
Warren, then in the West Indies, to proceed towards the north, early
in the spring; and to employ such a force as might be necessary to
protect the northern colonies in their trade and fisheries, as well as
to distress the enemy. On these subjects, he was instructed to consult
with Shirley, to whom orders of the same date were written, directing
him to assist the King's ships with transports, men, and provisions.

Such deep impression had the design of taking Louisbourg made on the
mind of Shirley, that he did not wait for intelligence of the
reception given to his application for naval assistance. He was
induced to decide on engaging in the enterprise, even without such
assistance, by the representations of Mr. Vaughan