battle swayed from
side to side as the desperate garrison made a sortie, or the besiegers
impetuously rushed to the attack. But even the walls of Louisbourg
could not for long withstand that furious and ceaseless cannonade,
which shattered the heaviest bastions; and when the gallant fort could
hold out no longer, a white flag fluttered from the broken ramparts,
and the brave Duchambon, his veteran garrison decimated, marched out
with the honours of war.

The loss of Louisbourg was the severest blow yet sustained by New
France, and without delay a powerful expedition was organised to
recapture the fortress and take revenge upon the enemy. No such
formidable and menacing armada had ever left the shores of France as
now sailed out of Rochelle, under command of the Duc d'Anville.
Thirty-nine ships of the line convoyed transports bearing a veteran
army westward; and the English colonists trembled for its coming.
However, the advance tidings of this terrible flotilla were all that
reached the New World; for hardly had D'Anville lost sight of the
French coast before two of his ships fell a prey to British gunboats,
and a succession of storms scattered the rest in all directions.

At length, after weeks of delay, the surviving vessels struggled one
by one into the harbour of Chedabucto. In deadly dejection, D'Anville
had succumbed to apoplexy; moreover, his successor, the Admiral
D'Estournelle, had committed suicide; and the new commander was
La Jonquiere, a distinguished naval officer, then on his way to
Quebec to assume the office of Governor-General. His sorry fleet
notwithstanding, La Jonquiere decided to strike a blow at Annapolis.
Thither he shaped his course; but again a violent storm overtook them
on the way, and the ships, unable to weather the tempest, steered
straight for France once more.

Even in the face of these dark disasters France was unwilling to
abandon Louisbourg, and in 1747 another powerful naval force under La
Jonquiere set out for Acadia. Like its magnificent but hapless
predecessor, this fleet had hardly cleared the Bay of Biscay before it
came to grief. Falling in with a British squadron under Admiral Anson
off Cape Finisterre, it was almost totally destroyed.

In other quarters, however, France had received amends from fortune,
and in the following year the European powers signed the Treaty of
Aix-la-Chapelle, Louisbourg being restored to France in exchange for
the Indian province of Madras, whi