The early spring of 1745 saw New England preparing for war. Seaports bustled as a makeshift armada prepared to carry a newly raised, inexperienced colonial army of farmers, fishermen, merchants, and frontiersmen into battle. The unlikely objective was Louisbourg, a heavily fortified seaport and capital of the French colony of Ile Royale some six hundred miles northeast of Boston.*

Longstanding colonial rivalries between Great Britain and France fueled the expedition. By the mid-eighteenth century, Britain had driven Portuguese and Spanish fishermen from the rich Newfoundland banks; New Holland and New Sweden had become the British colonies of New York and Delaware; and many Native North Americans had been decimated and displaced. Among European powers, only the French to the north and the Spanish to the south contested the British dominance.

In the northeast, natural barriers separated the heartlands of New England and New France. Lake Champlain and the Hudson River offered a corridor between New York and Montreal, but the distance separating the rival settlements offered each a measure of security. Maine was disputed territory, claimed both by the New England colonies and by Acadian settlements on the Bay of Fundy.

An uneasy peace had existed between England and France since 1713, when the Treaty of Utrecht brought the War of Spanish Succession–called Queen Anne’s War by the British colonists–to a close. That peace ended in March 1744, when France declared war on Great Britain. The War of Austrian Succession, or King George’s War, soon engulfed the belligerents’ North American colonies, the French at Louisbourg gaining an initial advantage when they received news of the state of war in early May, three weeks in advance of their English counterparts in Boston.

France saw the new conflict as a golden opportunity to recover Nova Scotia, ceded by treaty to Britain thirty-one years earlier. Attacks by Nova Scotia’s aboriginal native occupants, the Mi`kmaq, had restricted British settlement there to fortified outposts at Annapolis Royal and Canso.

The French struck first at Canso, an important seasonal New England fishery at the easternmost tip of Nova Scotia that had employed up to 250 schooners and 3,000 fishermen during the 1720s and 1730s. Situated only sixty miles by sea from Louisbourg, the British port threatened a vital supply route from the Acadian farmlands. Since Louisbourg was short of food that spring, hunger proved an effective spur to action. Using fishing vessels as transports and two privateers as escorts, 350 soldiers and sailors under Captain François Du Pont Duvivier moved on the attack.

With only eighty-seven soldiers defending rudimentary fortifications, the British surrendered after a short bombardment and minimal resistance. The French destroyed both the fortifications and the settlement and took the garrison, their families, and a few fishermen back to Louisbourg as prisoners.

French privateers followed this success by attacking New England’s fisheries and commerce. The raiders began by striking at rival vessels encountered off the Nova Scotia coast and eventually extended their reach down to New England itself. French warships on their way to and from Louisbourg also attacked New England shipping. But the British colonies soon replied with privateers of their own and, by August, had largely bottled up French shipping in Louisbourg.

With Canso’s destruction, Annapolis Royal became the sole remaining British stronghold in Nova Scotia. Its garrison too was under-strength and poorly equipped, but its earthen fortifications recently had been repaired, and its defenders expected an attack. Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, fearing a domino-like string of French successes that would bring the enemy to his colony’s shores, rallied support for Annapolis Royal’s defense. Massachusetts raised almost two hundred men (many of whom would not receive their weapons until arriving at Annapolis Royal).

The first attack on the British settlement came not from the French but from the Mi`kmaq. From July 12 to July 16, approximately three hundred Mi`kmaq and neighboring Maliseet, encouraged by the French missionaries, attacked the fort. Lacking artillery, the Native warriors proved incapable of capturing the outpost, and the timely appearance of reinforcements from Massachusetts led the Mi`kmaq attackers first to withdraw and then to disband. Additional reinforcements from Massachusetts arrived later in the summer.

The French attack finally came in August when a Louisbourg detachment commanded by François Du Pont Duvivier arrived at Annapolis Royal with a force of 50 French soldiers, 160 Mi`kmaq, and 70 Maliseet. Duvivier, expecting support from two French warships, launched harassing night attacks. Eventually, the English commander, Paul Mascarene, agreed to a truce and to surrender if and when the French warships arrived.

Irked by the continued delay, Duvivier abandoned the truce and resumed fighting. Although no French ships appeared, Duvivier stubbornly continued the siege until October 2, when Michel de Gannes, a higher-ranking officer, ordered a withdrawal.

Despite the reprieve, New England continued to view Louisbourg as a serious military threat. After all, Annapolis Royal had barely escaped capture, and a more determined–and better coordinated–attack in 1745 just might succeed. The loss of Nova Scotia and the consequent return of thousands of Acadians to French authority would, Governor Shirley feared, threaten English settlement in Maine and even New Hampshire. Louisbourg, moreover, still acted as a safe haven for privateers and naval vessels that harassed New England’s shipping, and the French colony was an economic rival in the Atlantic fishery, particularly for the dried fish markets of southern Europe. Passions were further inflamed by religious animosity between Protestant New England and Roman Catholic New France.

Many in New England nevertheless had strong misgivings about the wisdom of a direct attack on the French stronghold. Prohibitions notwithstanding, New Englanders had traded at Louisbourg for years and well knew its substantial fortifications. The French garrison there was large (about 1,500 regulars and militiamen), and its harborfront batteries bristled with heavy cannon. New England lacked both military regulars and artillery. Many agreed with Ben Franklin’s admonition to his brother in Massachusetts that ‘fortified towns are hard nuts to crack; and your teeth are not been accustomed to it. Taking strong places is a particular trade, which you have taken up without serving an apprenticeship to it. . . . But some seem to think forts are as easy taken as snuff.’

Undeterred, Governor Shirley and his supporters campaigned during the fall and winter of 1744-45 to convince the New England colonies, particularly Massachusetts, that an attack on Louisbourg was practical. They buttressed their arguments with reports of the town’s weaknesses from Canso prisoners, who had been repatriated after spending the summer of 1744 in Louisbourg. In addition to noting low morale among the troops, these eyewitnesses reported on the poor state of Louisbourg’s masonry fortifications and revealed that many of its cannon–particularly those facing the land–were not mounted, leaving that front less protected than the seaward side.

By combining the New Englander’s political and economic concerns with promises of plentiful loot, claims of the fortress’s weakness, and admonitions from clergy about the ‘Stronghold of Satan,’ advocates of the attack waged a close but ultimately successful campaign. On February 5, 1745, the Massachusetts House of Representatives narrowly approved a plan to move against Louisbourg in conjunction with the other British colonies.

With Massachusetts taking the lead, the colonies quickly raised a land force of four thousand men and gathered the vessels necessary to transport them to Louisbourg. Massachusetts, which then included the Maine District, assembled seven regiments; Connecticut and New Hampshire each raised one. Rhode Island contributed a warship and supplied three companies of soldiers (who did not arrive until the siege had ended), and New York chipped in with some badly needed artillery. Commodore Peter Warren, who had long advocated an expedition against Louisbourg, justified his participation on general orders from the British Admiralty encouraging him to make ‘any Attempts upon the French.’

William Pepperrell, a well-known merchant, member of the Massachusetts Council, and militia officer from Kittery, Maine, became the expedition’s commander. In early April, even before naval support for their mission had been confirmed, the troops embarked for Nova Scotia, and a flotilla of small colonial warships assumed blockade duty off Louisbourg. En route to their rendez- vous at Canso, the large Massachusetts contingent encountered a storm that scattered the transports. One New Englander reported that his vessel was turned into ‘A Very Hospital, we were all Sick, in a Greater or lesser Degree.’

Even after the New England force assembled in Canso, Pepperrell had to bide time until the spring drift ice left Gabarus Bay, the fleet’s intended anchorage during the siege. The New Englanders used the time at Canso for much-needed training and to rebuild the port’s defenses.

On May 3, the British warship Eltham arrived with the welcome news that the sixty-gun Superbe–Warren’s flagship–and several other naval vessels would join the attack. A week later, with the drift ice departed, the expedition sailed for Louisbourg. Two smaller attacks were launched as well against the French settlements at Port Toulouse (St. Peters) and then at Niganiche (Ingonish), also on Ile Royale.

Officials at Louisbourg, meanwhile, remained unaware of the scale of the coming attack. Prisoners returning from Boston in the fall of 1744 had warned of a planned assault but provided no details. The French considered the fractious British colonies incapable of unified action. A formal siege, they reasoned, would require support from Britain, thus allowing time for their reinforcements to sail from France.

Louis Du Pont Duchambon, interim commander of Louisbourg, received troubling accounts of activity at Canso, though he was unable to confirm them. The drift ice frequently kept the English vessels patrolling off Louisbourg at a distance, moderating the effect of the blockade. Then on May 7, an armed French merchant ship managed to enter the harbor and confirm that there was indeed a New England blockade of the port.

Duchambon faced major problems in planning Louisbourg’s defense. Although its builders had expected any full-scale assault to come from the sea, they allowed three of Louisbourg’s four major seaward batteries to remain vulnerable to bombardment from higher ground. Also troubling was the state of mind of the garrison–eight companies of French Marines and a detachment of the Swiss Karrer Regiment–which had mutinied in December 1744. Although the men had since returned to duty, the officers understandably were concerned about their reliability under fire.

On May 11, the New England fleet entered Gabarus Bay and on anchoring could see ‘the light house & ye steeples in the town.’ Within hours, the troops clambered into boats and pulled for shore at a spot about three miles from the fortress. About a hundred men under the command of Louisbourg Port Captain Pierre Morpain opposed the landing. After a brief skirmish in which the New Englanders suffered only a few wounded, the French retreated.

Having tasted their first victory, the New Englanders began a disorderly advance toward Louisbourg; one New Englander reported that ‘Everyone Did what was Right in his own Eyes. . . .’ Soon French artillery fire convinced the attackers to halt their advance on the low hills overlooking the town.

Louisbourg and its fortifications gave the New Englanders good reason to pause. Built on a broad, low peninsula at the southwestern end of the harbor, the King’s and Queen’s Bastions, each built on a slight hill, centered the thirty-foot high landward front that ended at the Dauphin Demi-bastion on the harbor side and the Princess Demi-bastion on the seaward side.* A sloping glacis beyond a broad ditch shielded part of the wall from direct fire. Except for a few areas of high ground, the terrain in front of the landward fortifications was composed of marshy bog that seemed to serve as a natural defense to the walls.

Louisbourg’s builders had paid particular attention to guarding the harbor entrance with interlocking fields of fire from heavy artillery in the Island Battery at the mouth of the harbor; at the Royal Battery on its north shore; and, within the walls, at the Pièce de la Grave Battery at the east end of the town’s waterfront and the Circular Battery adjacent to the Dauphin Demi-bastion.

In addition to being in a considerable state of disrepair, the fortifications possessed several weak points. Most bothersome was the noticeable drop in elevation from the King’s Bastion to the harbor that exposed that bastion’s right flank and the low-lying Dauphin Demi-bastion to artillery fire from nearby hills. Moreover, a large pond between the King’s and Dauphin bastions eliminated the protective slope of the glacis.

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