: Sir William Pepperrell.]

This opened in 1744, England against France once more, and in 1745 came
the capture of Louisburg, then the Gibraltar of America. This was
brought about through the energy of Governor Shirley, of Massachusetts,
the most efficient English commander this side the Atlantic. That
commonwealth voted to send 3,250 men, Connecticut 500, New Hampshire and
Rhode Island each 300. Sir William Pepperrell, of Kittery, Me.,
commanded, Richard Gridley, of Bunker Hill fame, being his chief of
artillery. The expedition consisted of thirteen armed vessels, commanded
by Captain Edward Tyng, with over 200 guns, and about ninety transports.
The Massachusetts troops sailed from Nantasket March 24th, and reached
Canso, April 4th. "Rhode Island," says Hutchinson, "waited until a
better judgment could be made of the event, their three hundred not
arriving until after the place had surrendered." The expedition was very
costly to the colonies participating, and four years later England
reimbursed them in the sum of 200,000 pounds. Yet at the disgraceful
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, in 1748, she surrendered Louisburg and all
Cape Breton to France again.

[1746-1748]

In 1746 French and Indians from Crown Point destroyed the fort and
twenty houses at Saratoga, killing thirty persons, and capturing sixty.
Orders came this year from England to advance on Crown Point and
Montreal, upon Shirley's plan, all the colonies as far south as Virginia
being commanded to aid. Quite an army mustered at Albany. Sir William
Johnson succeeded in rousing the Iroquois, whom the French had been
courting with unprecedented assiduity. But D'Anville's fleet threatened.
The colonies wanted their troops at home. Inactivity discouraged the
soldiers, alienated the Indians. At last news came that the Canada
project was abandoned, and in 1748 the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was
declared.

This very year France began new efforts to fill the Ohio Valley with
emigrants. Virginia did the same. To anticipate the English, the French
sent Bienville to bury engraved leaden plates at the mouths of streams.
They also fortified the present sites of Ogdensburg and Toronto. Even
now, therefore, France's power this side the Atlantic was not visibly
shaken. The continental problem remained unsolved.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR

[1748]

The Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle had been made only because the contestants
were tired of fighting. In America, at