nce blessing he could only mutter, "Good Lord,
we have so much to thank Thee for, time is too short; we must leave it
to eternity. Amen"; how the New Englanders, unused to French wines,
drank themselves torpid on the stores of the fort cellar; how the
French the next year made superhuman effort to regain Louisburg, only
to have a magnificent fleet of one hundred and fifty sail wrecked on
Sable Island, Duke d'Anville, the commander, dying of heartbreak on his
ship anchored near Halifax, his successor killing himself with his own
sword,--cannot be told here. Louisburg was the prize of the war, and
England threw the prize away by giving it back to France in the Treaty
of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. The English government paid back the
colonies for their outlay, but of all the rich French pirate ships
loaded with booty, captured at Louisburg by leaving the French flag
flying, not a penny's worth went to the provincial troops. Warren's
seamen received all the loot.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE FORTIFICATIONS AT LOUISBURG]

Like all preceding treaties, the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle left
unsettled the boundaries between New France and New England. In
Acadia, in New York, on the Ohio, collisions were bound to come.

In Acadia the English send their officers to the Isthmus of Chignecto
to establish a fort near the bounds of what are now Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick. The priestly spy, Louis Joseph Le Loutre, leads his wild
Micmac savages through the farm settlement round the English fort,
setting fire to houses putting a torch even to the church, and so
compelling the habitants of the boundary to come over to the French and
take sides. The treaty has restored Louisburg to the French, but the
very {221} next year England sends out Edward Cornwallis with two
thousand settlers to establish the English fort now known as Halifax.
By 1752 there are four thousand people at the new fort, though the
Indian raiders miss no occasion to shoot down wayfarers and farmers;
and the French Governor at Quebec continues his bribes--as much as
eight hundred dollars a year to a man--to stir up hostility to the
English and prevent the Acadian farmers taking the oath of fidelity to
England. So much for the peace treaty in Acadia. It was not peace; it
was farce.

[Illustration: CONTEMPORARY PLAN OF THE ATTACK ON LOUISBURG]

In New York state matters were worse. The Iroquois had been
acknowledged allies of the English, and before 1730 the E