indomitable garrison; and at length, after weeks of useless
cannonade, the besiegers stole back to their stronghold in Cape
Breton. This gallant repulse of a desperate attempt to regain Acadia
prompted New England to an expedition against the strong fortress of
Louisbourg--the standing menace to peaceful colonial development. Were
it but reduced, the English seaboard would be henceforth free from all
danger of French attack.

Such large considerations fired the English colonists with an
enthusiasm which took little thought for the grave dangers attending
such an enterprise. Excepting the citadel of Quebec itself, there was
no fortress on the American continent to compare in strength with
Louisbourg. Built on a narrow rocky cape which projected out into the
Atlantic, the ocean girded it on three sides, and on the fourth side a
morass made it difficult of approach. A powerful fortification, known
as the Island Battery, protected the mouth of the harbour, and the
guns of Grand Battery frowned over the inner basin. The French
garrison numbered thirteen hundred chosen men. Such was the fortress
which Governor Shirley of Massachusetts planned to destroy, and
against which the daring Pepperell presently threw the ill-trained
levies of New England.

One night, when the citadel of Louisbourg was brilliant with
festivity, the colonists dancing and all unconscious of danger, a
hundred transports from New England entered Gabarus Bay. The citizens
would have held it a foolish dream that any attempt could be made to
capture Louisbourg, but there, in the early morning of April 30th,
1745, Pepperell's army was disembarking before their eyes, and in the
offing Commodore Warren, with four British battleships, stood
blockading the harbour. The bells of the martial little town rang
madly in alarm, and the booming of cannon at once brought the dismayed
citizens to the ramparts.

[Illustration: LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR WILLIAM PEPPERELL, BART.]

Without loss of time Pepperell began to make his way across the
marshes lying between his camp and Louisbourg, erecting batteries as
he went to answer the cannonade of the garrison. Each morning saw the
intrepid besiegers closer to the walls, having advanced their
intrenchments under cover of the darkness. A daring assault had
meanwhile carried the grand battery, and from a salient post on
Light-house Point Pepperell's guns were soon able to silence the
island redoubt at the mouth of the harbour. The