Ever since I first developed an interest in Maine history many years ago,\u00a0have wanted someday to see Louisburg, for it was a band of Maine settlers,\u00a0recruited from Kittery to Waldoboro, who made up much of the valiant but untrained\u00a0army that accomplished the incredible feat of conquering what was in\u00a01745 the strongest armed fortress in North America, the great French fortificat\u00a0i on of Lou i sburg on Cape Breton ils I and.<\/p>\n
So it was with exceptional pleasure that, on an afternoon last July, I\u00a0drove from Cape Breton’s principal city of Sydney 25 mi les down to the place on\u00a0the island’s eastern shore where remain the ruins of ancient Louisburg.<\/p>\n
Those rui ns cover a space of more than two hundred acres, for bes i des the\u00a0big fort there were once shops and homes for 6,000 people. Many of the ruined\u00a0wal Is and bui Idings have been restored, at least in outline, by the careful\u00a0work of archaeol og’!.sts, and ins i de the exce I lent museum, ma i nta i ned on the site,\u00a0is a model of the old fort and city that stood here 200 years ago.<\/p>\n
The fortification wal I, from the west gate on the harbor side to the\u00a0Prince’s bastion on the Atlantic side, enclosed an area of 57 acres. In the\u00a0center was a huge bui Iding cal led the Citadel or the Chateau St. Louis, 360 feet\u00a0long, and containing both the governor’s quarters and the chapel, as wei I as\u00a0officers’ quarters and barracks for soldiers. There was a hospital 280 feet\u00a0long, with a large garden. On the cliffs overlooking the harbor was the largest\u00a0lighthouse in North America. By 1725 the town was a self-sustaining community.<\/p>\n
I t had a coa Iyard, a fish market, a tavern, a bill i ard hall, a theater,\u00a0and a dozen shops, at least one of which catered especially to women. There were\u00a0artisans of many kinds — blacksmiths, si Iversmiths, carpenters, potters, dress-\u00a0makers and mi II i ners.<\/p>\n
In the height of its glory more than 150 ships, not counting fishing vessels,\u00a0came every year to Louisburg from the Gaspe, Quebec and Montreal; from\u00a0al I New England ports; from San Domingo and Martinique; and from far away\u00a0France. The town exported coal, salmon, fish oi I, cod, furs, oak plank; and\u00a0it imported large quantities of rum, molasses, coffee and tobacco. All this was\u00a0going on at Louisburg before a single permanent settler had made his home above\u00a0Merrymeeting Bay on the Kennebec.<\/p>\n
Such was Louisburg — cal led in 1730 the Paris of America. Such was the\u00a0fort and the town which seemingly crazy New Englanders took it into their heads\u00a0they could capture in 1745. As the English settlements increased, it became\u00a0apparent that if Louisburg remained in French hands, it would be a constant menace\u00a0to the British towns in Nova Scotia and New E~gland. Although the fortress\u00a0was known to be very strong, Gov. Shirley decided it could be taken, especially\u00a0after he had consulted with \\~i Iliam Vaughan of Damariscotta, whom the historian\u00a0Wi Iliamson describes as ‘!a man of good understanding, but of daring, tenacious\u00a0mi nd, who thought noth i ng of obstac les’~ \u2022 Actua II y Vaughan had neve r seen Loui sburg,\u00a0but through his fish i ng interests he knew someth i ng about it. He conce ived\u00a0a plan to capture the place in the winter, supposing it possible to walk\u00a0over the walls on the hard, deep snow drifts.<\/p>\n
If the town bore the soubriquet !!Paris of America li\u00a0, the fort should have\u00a0been called the HDunkirk of America” or the !!,A.merican Gi Ibraltar”.<\/p>\n
The Massachusetts General Court voted in favor of the expedition by a\u00a0majority of one vote on January 26, 1745. The plan proposed a land force of\u00a04,000 men and such a fleet of ships as might soon be prepared. Circulars were\u00a0addressed to all the American colonies, even in the far south, urging them to\u00a0give assistance, but none responded outside New England.<\/p>\n
A difficult problem was the selection of comManding officers. ~.1en with\u00a0mi litary experience not being avai lab Ie, the command of the expedition fel I on\u00a0\\~i II iam Pepperell of Kittery, who was colonel of the Yorkshi re reoiment of mi 1-\u00a0itia. Samuel Waldo, founder of Waldoboro and owner of the vast Waldo patent,\u00a0was second in command. Third was Jeremiah Moulton of York.<\/p>\n
vlith all the chief officers coming from Maine, it was natural that enlistments\u00a0shou I d be heaviest from that area. ~~a i ne men responded out of a II proportion\u00a0to their numbers. Though untrained in military tactics, they were excellent\u00a0frontier fighters, because the Indian Wars had taught them much. Then too\u00a0they were nearer the scene of Louisburg’s constant threat than was Boston or\u00a0Ph i I ade I phi a.<\/p>\n
\\~hen Pepperell’s force started from Nantucket on March 24, 1745, it consisted\u00a0of an army of 4,000 men, 13 fighting ships with 200 guns, and 8 transports\u00a0and store ships. The fleet arrived at Canso, Nova Scotia on Apri I 4,\u00a0where the ice sti II cl inging to Cape Breton shores deJayed them for three\u00a0weeks. It was Apri I 30 before they made an unopposed landing below Louisbur~.\u00a0On May 2, Lt. Vaughan — the man who had advised Gov. Shirley to try the venture\u00a0Jed 400 men through the woods to the northeast part of the harbor, where they\u00a0burned warehouses containing naval stores. The smoke, driven by the wind into\u00a0the grand battery, so alarmed the French that they abandoned the battery.<\/p>\n
Vaughan at once turned its guns toward the city and began shel ling the town.<\/p>\n
But the town held out. A state of siege set in. Pepperel I saw that the\u00a0place cou I d not be taken un less severa I batteri es were set up nearer the defending\u00a0citadel. So for 14 successive nights his troops hauled cannon through\u00a0a swamp where no oxen could go. Unable to use wheels, the soldiers constructed\u00a0sledges and, with straps over their shoulders, wading in mud to their knees,\u00a0themselves became the draft animals to haul the 9uns into place.<\/p>\n
The French governor refused Peppere II’s demand for surrender. The siege\u00a0went on. Four other batteries soon joined those that were al ready she II ing the\u00a0town. On June 7 the town sti I I held. So Pepperel I decided to attempt by strategem\u00a0what he had failed to accomplish by force. He informed the captain of a\u00a0captured French ship how badly the French had treated some of their English prisoners,\u00a0then showed him how well the British treated thei r French prisoners.<\/p>\n
Then Pepperell asked the captain to certify the fact of good prisoner treatment\u00a0to the commander of the French garrison and advise the latter to treat English\u00a0pri soners with the sarre humanity. The French captain agreed to Peppere II’s request,\u00a0with the result that Capt. McDonald from Falmouth, Maine was al lowed to\u00a0eni”e r the fort under a flag of truce and convey the letter to the French commander.<\/p>\n
Pepperell had selected McDonald because the latter could speak French,\u00a0but the shrewd Peppere II gave the Fa I mouth man orders to pretend that he cou I dnft\u00a0understand a word of it. So he had the obvious advantage of understanding\u00a0what the French officers said all the time he was with them, whi Ie they supposed\u00a0he didn’t comprehend a word of their conversation among themselves.<\/p>\n
Through this strategem Pepperell learned that gun fire had already demolished\u00a0the west gate and made a break in thewal I, that provisions were running\u00a0low, and that the garrison had become so mutinous that the governor would not\u00a0trust them to make sorties, lest they desert to the enemy.<\/p>\n
So the man from Kittery decided to make a grand attack by land and sea on\u00a0June 18. When the French governor learned of this, he made the first overtures\u00a0toward surrender. He wrote to Pep pe re I I: H I send th i s note to request a\u00a0suspension of arms, so long as shal I be needful for me to make proposals upon\u00a0what condi ti ons I sha II de liver to you the p I ace wh i ch the Ki ng, my master, has\u00a0entrusted to rre. N\u00a0Terms were soon agreed upon, and on June 17 the British marched in and took\u00a0possession, whi Ie the French were a I lowed to march out, as the hi stori an puts\u00a0it, Hwith arms, music and standards”.<\/p>\n
So it came about that June 17 in our history is more than the anniversary\u00a0of Bunker Hill in 1775; it also marks that event 30 years earlier — the capture\u00a0of Louisburg by William Pepperel” Samuel Vlaldo, vJilliam Vaughan and other men\u00a0from Maine — helped of course by men from al I New England.<\/p>\n
At firsT there was great rejo i ci ng from Ha I i fax to New York, but when it\u00a0was al lover The New England men who had fought and suffered and left their dyi\u00a0ng compani ons on the shore of Cape Bneton had reason to comp I ai n. The Briti sh\u00a0government saw to it that the fleet got away wiTh the captured treasure. Only\u00a0two of the New Eng I and off ice rs” and none at a I I of the men, got any part of the\u00a0captured prizes. Ohly after a delay of four years did Parliament make any recompense\u00a0for The expenses borne by the co Ion i a I leg is I atures \u2022 Then ~~assach usetts\u00a0finally received 483,000 pounds, mostly in si Iver, shipped in 215 chests.<\/p>\n
The p.rovince immediately used the money to stabi lize its badly depreciated currency.<\/p>\n
Just as The results of a treaty would later deprive the Acadians at Grand\u00a0Pre of their homes and lands, so the Treaty of Aix-Ia-Chapel Ie in 1748 completely\u00a0undid the heroic feat of New Englanders at Louisburg. The treaty declared\u00a0that all territorial conquests which either France or Britain had made\u00a0since 1744 must be returned. So within three years after its capture, Louisburg,\u00a0without a shot being fired, was back again in French hands.<\/p>\n
When war broke out again in 1755 the British determined to get possession\u00a0of Louisburg a second time, but the attempt was not made unti I 1758. That spring\u00a0a fleet of 23 ships carried 14,000 troops to Halifax. They were commanded by\u00a0Lord Jeffrey Amherst, whom Amherst College boys sti II si’ng about as “a soldier\u00a0of the kjng!~. One of Amherst’s generals was James Wolfe, who would later meet\u00a0heroic death on the Plains of Abraham outside Quebec.<\/p>\n
Again iT took days of siege to bring the fort to submission, but British\u00a0shel Is had finally done so much damage that French ships burned and sank, and\u00a0the Citadel bui Iding itself was burned to the ground. When at last only three\u00a0French guns were able to return British fire, the French commander surrendered.<\/p>\n
That ended the French control of Louisburg or of any place on Cape Breton.<\/p>\n
Two years later, when Amherst had become British commander-in-chief in North\u00a0America, he received a letter from Pitt, the Prime Minister, which said: “The\u00a0King has decided that the fortress at Loui sburg, together with all the w’orks and\u00a0defenses of the harbor, shall be entirely destroyed.” So on October 17, 1760\u00a0eighteen big explosives from 350 powder chambers blew up the whole fortification\u00a0and the town. What had once been a proud, seemingly impregnable stronghold\u00a0passed into history. Only the ruins of a once great Louisburg remained.<\/p>\n
Let us close tonight with a few words about inflation. We are told that\u00a0commodity prices in the United States have now reached their highest peak of any\u00a0time in the 20th century, and apparently the end is not yet. But the worst we\u00a0have had or are likely to have was mi Id treatment compared with the inflation\u00a0that repeatedly hit our American forefathers. One such occasion came in 1779,\u00a0when the Province of Massachusetts became impoverished by the expedition against\u00a0Castine. In that third year after the Declaration of Independence the price of\u00a0corn in Falmouth rose to $35 a bushel. ~’lheat meal was $75, and molasses was $16\u00a0a gallon. The currency was valued at 40 to one; that is, four ten dollar bi lis\u00a0of paper money could be exchanged for just one dollar in si Iver. Hard money -that\u00a0is, coined money — became very scarce. By mid-summer it took $20 in paper\u00a0money to buy a pound of tea. I n September the town of Bowdoi nham voted Hthat\u00a0the corn which was paid by the town to the soldiers last spring shall be valued\u00a0at $40 a bushe I f” \u2022<\/p>\n
So keep your chin up_ \\,\/e <\/em>aren’t the first Arrericans to be afflicted by the\u00a0shrinking value of the dollar.<\/p>\n Year: 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Read the script for “Little Talks” program #315, broadcast on October 21, 1956<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[790,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7667"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7667\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}