f Commodore Warren, of the English West-Indian
fleet, was solicited; but the Commodore declined, on the ground "that the
expedition was wholly a provincial affair, undertaken without the assent,
and probably without the knowledge, of the ministry." But Governor Shirley
was not a man to stop at trifles. He had a heart of lignum vitae, a rigid
anti-papistical conscience, beetle brows, and an eye to the cod-fisheries.
Higher authority than international law was pressed into the service.
George Whitefield, then an itinerant preacher in New-England, furnished
the necessary warrant for the expedition, by giving a motto for its
banner: "_Nil desperandum Christo duce_"--Nothing is to be despaired of
with CHRIST for leader. The command was, however, given to William
Pepperel, a fish and shingle merchant of Maine. One of the chaplains of
the filibusters carried a hatchet specially sharpened, to hew down the
wooden images in the churches of Louisburgh. Everything that was needed to
encourage and cheer the saints, was provided by Governor Shirley,
especially a goodly store of New England rum, and the Rev. Samuel Moody,
the lengthiest preacher in the colonies. Louisburgh, at that time feebly
garrisoned, held out bravely in spite of the formidable array concentrated
against it. In vain the Rev. Samuel Moody preached to its high stone
walls; in vain the iconoclast chaplain brandished his ecclesiastical
hatchet; in vain Whitefield's banner flaunted to the wind. The fortress
held out against shot and shell, saint, flag and sermon. New England
ingenuity finally circumvented Louisburgh. Humiliating as the confession
is, it must be admitted that our pious forefathers did actually abandon
"CHRISTO duce," and used instead a little worldly artifice.

Commodore Warren, who had declined taking a part in the siege of
Louisburgh, on account of the regulations of the service, had received,
after the departure of the expedition, instructions to keep a look-out for
the interests of his majesty in North America, which of course could be
readily interpreted, by an experienced officer in his majesty's service,
to mean precisely what was meant to be meant. As a consequence, Commodore
Warren was speedily on the look-out, off the coast of Cape Breton, and in
the course of events fell in with, and captured, the "Vigilant,"
seventy-four, commanded by Captain Stronghouse, or, as his title runs,
"the Marquis de la Maison Forte." The "Vigilant" was a store-ship,