here was great murmuring among the
military officers, who would have had them engage the hostile guns at
short range. The frigate "Echo," under cover of a fog, had been sent to
Quebec for aid; but she was chased and captured; and, a day or two
after, the French saw her pass the mouth of the harbor with an English
flag at her mast-head.

When Wolfe had silenced the Island Battery, a new and imminent danger
threatened Louisbourg. Boscawen might enter the harbor, overpower the
French naval force, and cannonade the town on its weakest side.
Therefore Drucour resolved to sink four large ships at the entrance; and
on a dark and foggy night this was successfully accomplished. Two more
vessels were afterwards sunk, and the harbor was then thought safe.

The English had at last finished their preparations, and were urging on
the siege with determined vigor. The landward view was a solitude no
longer. They could be seen in multitudes piling earth and fascines
beyond the hillock at the edge of the marsh. On the twenty-fifth they
occupied the hillock itself, and fortified themselves there under a
shower of bombs. Then they threw up earth on the right, and pushed
their approaches towards the Barachois, in spite of a hot fire from the
frigate "Arethuse." Next they appeared on the left towards the sea about
a third of a mile from the Princess's Bastion. It was Wolfe, with a
strong detachment, throwing up a redoubt and opening an entrenchment.
Late on the night of the ninth of July six hundred French troops sallied
to interrupt the work. The English grenadiers in the trenches fought
stubbornly with bayonet and sword, but were forced back to the second
line, where a desperate conflict in the dark took place; and after
severe loss on both sides the French were driven back. Some days before,
there had been another sortie on the opposite side, near the Barachois,
resulting in a repulse of the French and the seizure by Wolfe of a more
advanced position.

Various courtesies were exchanged between the two commanders. Drucour,
on occasion of a flag of truce, wrote to Amherst that there was a
surgeon of uncommon skill in Louisbourg, whose services were at the
command of any English officer who might need them. Amherst on his part
sent to his enemy letters and messages from wounded Frenchmen in his
hands, adding his compliments to Madame Drucour, with an expression of
regret for the disquiet to which she was exposed, begging her at the
same t