was a grand, or royal battery, of
twenty-eight cannon, forty-two pounders, and two eighteen-pounders. On a
high cliff, opposite to the island-battery, stood a light house, and
within this point, at the north-east part of the harbor, was a careening
wharf, secure from all winds, and a magazine of naval stores. The town was
regularly laid out in squares; the streets were broad and commodious, and
the houses, which were built partly of wood upon stone foundations, and
partly of more durable materials, corresponded with the general appearance
of the place. In the centre of one of the chief bastions was a stone
building, with a moat on the side near the town, which was called the
citadel, though it had neither artillery nor a structure suitable to
receive any. Within this building were the apartments of the governor, the
barracks for the soldiers, and the arsenal; and, under the platform of the
redoubt, a magazine well furnished with military stores. The parish
church, also, stood within the citadel, and without was another, belonging
to the hospital of St. Jean de Dieu, which was an elegant and spacious
structure. The entrance to the town was over a drawbridge, near which was
a circular battery, mounting sixteen guns of fourteen-pound shot."

This cannon-studded harbor was the naval depot of France in America, the
nucleus of its military power, the protector of its fisheries, the key of
the gulf of St. Lawrence, the Sebastopol of the New World. For a quarter
of a century it had been gathering strength by slow degrees: Acadia, poor
inoffensive Acadia, from time to time, had been the prey of its rapacious
neighbors; but Louisburgh had grown amid its protecting batteries, until
Massachusetts felt that it was time for the armies of Gad to go forth and
purge the threshing-floor with such ecclesiastical iron fans as they were
wont to waft peace and good will with, wherever there was a fine opening
for profit and edification.

The first expedition against Louisburgh was only justifiable upon the
ground that the wants of New England for additional territory were
pressing, and immediate action, under the circumstances, indispensable.
Levies of colonial troops were made, both in and out of the territories of
the saints. The forces, however, actually employed, came from
Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire; the first supplying three
thousand two hundred, the second five hundred, the third three hundred
men. The cooeperation o