proposed, the undertaking was altogether beyond the capacity of the Province, and on all reasonable grounds of calculation could not fail so to result as to consummate a ruinous financial distress; that there was no safe reliance to be placed on the report which had been brought of the insecurity of the works at Louisburg, or the demoralization of the garrison; that in the formal movements of war the courage of new levies was no match for the discipline of regular troops; that the Province had no siege artillery, and could get none; that its heaviest vessel carried but twenty guns; that the whole fleet in which the soldiers, victorious or beaten, were to come back, if at all, could not maintain itself against a single French frigate; and that even if undisturbed it would be of little use for a blockade, in seas and at a season where there was a constant alternation between furious tempests and blinding fogs. These and other considerations made the committee decide that Massachusetts was not equal to the capture of Louisburg, but that urgent representations ought to be made to the English government of the desirableness of that acquisition, and of the wisdom of devoting to it such military and naval forces as would render availing the assistance which the Province was disposed liberally to afford, in the measure of its ability.

Governor.

The report was accepted, as far as appears, without opposition, and the project might seem to be disposed of.1 The Governor, however, was sanguine and perse- Persisted vering, while he had too much address to provoke in by the contradiction by an appearance of assumption and impracticableness. The secret of his communication to the Legislature was said to have escaped by means of the simplicity of a Representative, who in his family devotions prayed for Divine guidance to his action on a matter

prospect of success as the devils 1 Memoirs of the Last War, &c., might have stormed heaven." (Doug- 36.

las, Summary, &c., I. 336.)

Jan. 23.

of such moment. However disclosed, it spread with rapidity, exciting, as it went, an enthusiasm which made no careful calculations; and it was thought to be not without Jan. 15. encouragement from the Governor, who sent two more messages upon the subject, that petitions from merchants and fishermen of Boston, Salem, Marblehead, and other sea-coast towns, solicited a reconsideration of his plan. A second committee made a favorthe Court. able report, and after a day's debate the House signified its approbation by a majority of a single

Adopted by

Jan. 25.

vote.3

Here ended all dissent, repugnance, criticism, indifference. Henceforward the only question was as to who could do most to further the great design. After an unusually good harvest, provisions were abundant. Enlistments were facilitated by a stagnation of commerce, which left numbers of seamen and others without employment. The Governor solicited aid from the other English Colonies as far south as to Virginia, but it came only from those of New England, except that New York lent ten small guns (carrying eighteen-pound shot), and New Jersey

1 Belknap (Farmer's edit.), 270. 2 January 14, William Vaughan, in a letter to Shirley, urged him vehemently to persevere in the scheme, when the Legislature shrank from undertaking it. According to a contemporaneous memorandum, attached to this letter, "Mr. Vaughan went to Marblehead, where there were plenty of seamen and vessels, and where they gave him encouragement to furnish vessels in fourteen days for thirty-five hundred men ; and more than a hundred signed a petition for the revival of the affair, which he preferred to the General Assembly, with another, signed by more than two hundred principal gentlemen in Boston, upon which the affair was carried into execution and

accomplished." The same day Shirley informed the Duke of his application to the Court, and of its ill success; and on the first of February he reported the different conclusion which had been reached in a reconsideration of the matter.

3 The Committee now reported that they had learned from two persons, lately prisoners at Louisburg, and from " others who have been traders there, that the garrison had not more than five or six hundred regular troops, . . . . . three or four hundred fighting men of the inhabitants, and a small stock of provisions;" and that there were "no vessels of force in the harbor." (Memoirs, &c., 38.)

and Pennsylvania contributed some provisions and clothing. Massachusetts undertook to raise a force of three thousand two hundred and fifty men; Connecticut promised five hundred, and Rhode Island and New Hampshire three hundred each.

Lieutenant-
General

William

Pepperell.

It was of the first importance to find a commander capable both of keeping up the enthusiasm that had been excited for the enterprise, and of conducting its operations with spirit and good judgment. The choice fell upon William Pepperell, of Kittery. He was the son of a Devonshire man of the same name, who had come first to the Isles of Shoals, where he prospered as a fisherman, and then to Kittery, where he accumulated a considerable property for those days. The son, with better but still with no distinguished advantages for education, followed in his father's steps. When he was old enough, he became his father's partner in a miscellaneous business. They bought land, carried on farming, built ships, employed fishermen, and traded with the Southern Colonies, with the West Indies, and with Europe. The younger partner, thirty-eight years old at the time of his father's death, was the only surviving son, and inherited the greater part of the estate.

of

1734.

Feb. 15.

While, in the diligent prosecution of a profitable business, he became probably the richest man in the Province, he took an equal interest in public affairs, and received tokens of the public confidence. He had scarcely come age when he was made a justice of the peace and a captain of cavalry. When thirty years old, he represented Kittery in the General Court, and the next year was chosen a member of the Council. When Governor Belcher reconstituted the eastern Court of Common Pleas in order to get the appointment

of its clerk, he placed William Pepperell at its

1726.

1730.

head, who ordered a law library from London, and applied himself to the study of that science. He gave sedulous attention to the discipline of his regiment, and to military affairs in general; the protection of the eastern towns against the savages being a perpetual and urgent duty devolved especially upon him. He was so far without qualification for the capture of a fortified place, as that he had never seen a siege. But in this he was no worse off than any other New England officer. He would have to be governed by his good sense, and to devise methods as fast as he might, under the instruction of experience. His courage, discretion, probity, and patriotism were notorious and unquestionable. His uniform. success hitherto in whatever he had undertaken was an encouraging augury. The people confided in him, and were ready to trust themselves under his command; and something of what was lost by imperfect discipline would be compensated by the cheerfulness of voluntary obedience to a leader powerful through the personal good-will which adhered to him.

Pepperell entered into the scheme with serious distrust. His wisest friends were on the whole the least sanguine. Even the ardent Whitefield could give him no better encouragement than that, though the plan did not seem promising, he must " go with a single eye," and then he would find that "as was his day, so his strength would be." Whitefield is said to have furnished as a legend for the regimental colors the words, " Nil desperandum, Christo duce;" and, among his disciples who enlisted, one had equipped himself with a hatchet to be used in demolishing the idols in the Popish churches.'

While the enlistments and other preparations were in progress, precautions were used to prevent intelligence Times of the Reverend George Whitefield, 308.

1 Gillies, Memoirs of Whitefield, 147 et seq.; comp. Philip, Life and

the troops.

from getting abroad. The naval force proper consisted of fourteen vessels, of which the largest, carry- Muster and ing twenty guns, was commanded by Edward despatch of Tyng, commodore of the fleet. The transports were eighty or ninety in number. While they were assembling at Nantasket, in less than two months after the Governor's first communication to the Court, a squadron sailed to blockade Louisburg and intercept supplies. A day of fasting and prayer was appointed to be kept throughout the Province, and single churches made their own arrangements for the like solemnity to be observed at other times. The troops from Massachusetts, three thousand two hundred and fifty in number, besides commissioned officers, were a week on their voyage March 24to Canseau, the place of rendezvous. They found April 1. there the contingent from New Hampshire, three hundred strong. That from Connecticut, composed of five hundred and sixteen men, commanded by Lieutenant-Governor Wolcott, joined them after three weeks. The men expected from Rhode Island did not appear till the campaign was over.

saw his He had

The Gover

Arrived prosperously and secretly within fifty miles of Louisburg, the Lieutenant-General (such was the rank which the commander's commissions conferred not easy task confronting him close at hand. brought instructions drawn out with much detail, for the lawyer Shirley already entertained that nor's inoverestimate of his own military genius, which made his later life a disappointment. Pepperell found himself directed to do a number of things which would only come within his power if he could command the elements and adjust the course of time. The weather of

1 Pepperell was commissioned by the Governors of Connecticut and New Hampshire, as well as by Shirley. Wolcott, of Connecticut, had a

structions.

commission from Shirley as MajorGeneral, and Samuel Waldo and Joseph Dwight, of Massachusetts, as Brigadier-Generals.