Nova Scotia (21 page)

   
Admiral Holbourne had arrived from England with
eleven warships to blockade Louisbourg, but something happened to
stall the plan of attack. Loudon’s troops were on their way to
attack Louisbourg when the French ship
La Parole
was
captured. On the ship, hidden in a fish barrel, were fake letters
addressed to the French government indicating that Louisbourg had
twenty-two warships, other small craft and more than enough French
troops to stave off the English. Loudon, believing his men were
outnumbered by French ships and soldiers at Louisbourg, refused to
send them off to what he believed would be certain slaughter. He
decided to sail his men back to England but first returned to
Halifax where they were responsible for spreading a smallpox
epidemic that would kill 700 Haligonians that winter, a high
casualty rate for a battle that never happened.

   
Holbourne wasn’t as readily dissuaded from the attack but he
had a stroke of bad luck as gale-force winds lashed his fleet,
smashing up some of his ships along the coast of Cape Breton. By
the time they had regrouped, it was too late in the season to
attack.

   
In England, Loudon’s refusal to move on Louisbourg was
considered an outrage, so by the spring of 1758, a larger military
force was sent over for battle. General Jeffrey Amherst controlled
12,000 men and Admiral Boscawen commanded more than forty ships.
Together they were prepared to attack Louisbourg by the end of May.
Amherst had previously held only administrative jobs, most recently
in charge of providing supplies for Hessian troops, but back in
England his superiors had decided that Amherst was the man for the
job. Boscawen, on the other hand, had fought in Spain, Panama and
India. Nicknamed “Wry-necked Dick” or more affectionately, “Old
Dreadnought,” he was famous for hauling poor sods off the streets
and pressing them into naval service. He had been to Nova Scotia
previously with a crew of men dying of typhoid and had helped in
the dirty work of “removing” Acadians from their homes. Louisbourg
was not one of his favoured sailing destinations and he worried
considerably about “the dismal prospect of floating islands of ice
sufficient to terrifie [sic] the most daring
seaman.”

   
Instead of overindulging on cabbages to fight scurvy, the
soldiers now drank a palatable spruce beer made from boiled spruce,
molasses and yeast. By the time everyone was crowded into Halifax,
the city was even rowdier, drunker and more crime-infested than
before. A semblance of order was maintained by severe punishment:
floggings, hangings, execution by musket, all attended by
considerable crowds for their entertainment value. A less drastic
but somewhat painful and humiliating punishment was “riding the
wooden horse,” which, as close as I can figure, involved being
strapped naked onto a sharp wooden rail for hours at a time with
weights attached to your legs and feet. Pirates (privateers on the
wrong side) were hanged and their bodies left to swing in the
breeze for all to see.

   
Nobody knew what to do with the poor and the insane, so a
poorhouse – a kind of a prison, really i– was built where the
library on Spring Garden Road stands today. The inhabitants there
also received considerable floggings – inf hopes of what? one might
wonder. Reforming them? Improving their attitude? When they died,
they were buried in shallow graves, so that the smell of rotting
human flesh wafted up and down lovely Spring Garden Road where now
fashionable shops sell overpriced items of
fashion.

   
Most colonists in Halifax were not at all eager to get
involved in the battle for Louisbourg. In fact, there would be no
provincial regiments and relatively few Americans in the attack.
The provincial units served mostMaly as labourers, not actual
fighters. In Halifax, the red-coated Brits looked down their noses
at their blue-jacketed American counterparts, but the British
desperately needed the forest-fighting skills of some of the
American Rangers. One of these Ranger units was made up almost
entirely of Mohicans. Along with some other First Nations warriors,
they were armed, paid and fed by the British in the fighting at
Louisbourg and later at Quebec.

   
Amherst and Boscawen hoped that they could get the job done
quickly at Louisbourg and then move on to attack the French
stronghold in Quebec. That didn’t happen. Difficult winds made for
a slow crossing from Britain for Boscawen’s ships. Once all the
troops and ships were gathered in Halifax and ready to go, General
James Wolfe complained that the men were not yet ready for battle,
partly because they were poorly attired. It wasn’t just a matter of
fashion but the fact that the men were fitted for a summer war on
the continent, not a cooler war in rough Nova Scotian terrain. He
noticed that the English troops and seamen were not in top-notch
physical condition as a result of surviving only on salt-meat and
rum  – not exactly an ideal, nourishing diet. He also argued
that they were too well-paid to be good soldiers. As a leader, he
had serious doubts about a lot of things. Nonetheless, the plan
went ahead.

The Seven-week Siege

Governor Drucour had been expecting
the attack and his men were prepared. They had an ally in the sea
and the weather as well. On June 2, 1758, when the British Navy
sailed into Gabarus Bay, thick fog and high waves madeg a landing
impossible. The French knew what was going on and were prepared to
defend the fortress when the British troops finally did land at
White Point, Flat Point and Kennington Cove. French gunfire was so
intense that General Wolfe was ready to tell his men to retreat to
the ships, but he saw many of the boats were already smashed on the
rocks along the shore. So the British fought on.

   
Once a beachhead was established, the British didn’t have an
easy time rolling the big guns ashore and making a roadway to get
them closer to the fort. It was tough going along the rocky shore
and through the swamps beyond. Eventually, however, General Amherst
had landed a thousand of his men and Wolfe was hunkering down to
create a battery at Lighthouse Point.

   
Inside Louisbourg, Drucour had 8,000 men and at least 800
guns. The fort itself was stronger than it had been in 1745, but it
took a heavy pounding from the massive British weapons. The walls
were breached and building os inside were smashed. Men, women and
children helped serve the guns inside Louisbourg. Even Madame
Drucour was seen firing back at the British. Every day she would
fire three guns at the British to bolster the spirits pof the
bedraggled French defence. Fires raged in the town. Eventually,
citizens inside what was left of the walls pleaded with the
governor to surrender.

   
English shells had fallen on everything inside, including the
hospital. Drucour felt that this had overstepped the bounds of
decency and actually implored Amherst to allow for a zone for the
sick and wounded that would be protected from the shelling. Amherst
told Drucour to put them on a boat, but Drucour figured he couldn’t
afford to spare a ship. While this round of “negotiations” brought
little success, it did establish a communication link between the
two leaders and gifts were exchanged. Drucour sent Amherst two
bottles of champagne (the French were always well-stocked under all
circumstances with decent refreshments) and some butter. Amherst
sent Madame Drucour two pineapples, one of which was
rotten.

   
Seven weeks of siege had gone by. Massive holes gaped in the
walls. The town was in ruins. Women and children were out in the
streets without protection. Fires raged. French ships in the
harbour had been captured. Theref was not much hope for Louisbourg.
Finally, the British leaders stood inside on the parade ground. It
would be a defeat without “the honours of war.” Many of the French
were outraged. Better to die than be humiliated. Drucour, however,
handed his sword to Admiral Boscawen and surrendered. While Drucour
was stinging from the agony of the defeat, he knew, however, that
it was now too late in the year for the British to mount another
attack on Quebec, so he had at least saved that bastion of the
French Empire for a while. Apparently both Boscawen and Amherst
were charmed by Madame Drucour and granted her every wish for
comfort as a prisoner.

   
By the time of surrender, Drucour was not a healthy man. He
was also broke, having borrowed heavily to keep himself in office.
Madame Drucour returned first to France with her husband’s
journals. She hoped to convince the public back home that Drucour
had done the best he could to preserve Louisbourg against
impossible odds. When Drucour himself finally returned to France,
however, he was a shattered man without enough money to pay his own
passage.

   
As news of the fall of Louisbourg spread, celebrations broke
out in Boston and in Halifax, where bells rang and bonfires were
lit. As the soldiers returned, people danced in the streets and
Governor Charles Lawrence, who had been an officer in the battle,
held a grand ball in his official residence.

   
The fall of Louisbourg meant an end to French control in Cape
Breton and Île Saint-Jean. The British sent 500 men under Lord
Rollo to Port la Joie to root out the Acadians, many of whom had
fled there to avoid expulsion. Once again, the Acadians wanted only
to be left alone and allowed to work their recently established
farms. They begged to be permitted to stay, but to no avail. Before
being loaded on the boats, most single men were married in hasty
ceremonies in order to avoid conscription when they arrived back in
France. They were then shipped off to Louisbourg as prisoners or
sent back to France. Some would end up in English prisons. Some
escapeid and stayed behind but were eventually forced to swear the
oath of allegiance.

   
It was a sad and rugged crossing back to France
for those Acadians who were driven out of their homeland. France
would not feel at all like home to them and they would endure the
bitterness of losing their farms and livelihood. One of those
ships, the
Violet
, sank with all
aboard. Another one of the ships was leaking badly and then
something set off an explosion. At least 700 died in this and other
disasters. On the
Duke of
William
a kindly priest gave
the last rites to 300 Acadians who were about to drown on the
sinking ship. As the vessel sank, he himself jumped into an English
lifeboat and found his way safely to England.

   
The following year, 1759, would see the British defeat the
French on the Plains of Abraham. Both British General Wolfe and
French Lieutenant-General Montcalm would be killed in the
battle.

The War Against No One

In 1760, British soldiers continued
to attack Louisbourg even though the battle had long since been
won. What was the occasion? The British decided it wasn’t worth
saving what was left of the elaborate fortress, for feaer that the
French might try to wangle a way to regain her territory and repair
the fort. For months, the war without enemies continued as the
remains of Louisbourg were smashed even further into rubble. Some
stones from the Louisbourg walls and houses, however, were salvaged
to build homes in Halifax.

   
Since the Fortress of Louisbourg was demolished, the
remaining English soldiers had to find shelter elsewhere. Many
returned to Halifax and lived in tents,c where quite a few died
from disease and drinking. Halifax was just not a good place to
settle in for the winter with a tent and a nearly unlimited supply
of cheap liquor.

   
The first General Assembly of Nova Scotia got underway in
October of 1758. Although it had limited power, it was a big step
toward some kind of representational government here. The Halifax
Dockyard began to take shape and a lighthouse was built at Sambro,
although its actual use was fairly haphazard for some
time.

   
Most Mi’kmaq realized that their alliance with the French was
over and further resistance to the English would be futile.
Argimault, chief of the Monguash Mi’kmaq, signed a treaty in
Halifax, attended by Father Maillard, a French missionary who had
lived among the Mi’kmaq for twenty-five years. Father Maillard, who
had once translated the Catholic liturgy into Mi’kmaq, now acted as
translator in the peace proceedings where Argimault buried the
hatchet in the garden of the colonial governor on Spring Garden
Road.

   
The war with France was pretty well over in this part of the
world. More immigrants began to pour into Halifax. King George
refused Halifax’s request to incorporate in 1759, believing that
the town was merely a military outpost. Halifax was, alas, still a
pretty primitive place. Slaves were advertised in the papers and
auctioned off before the public. Because there were more soldiers
and sailors here than civilians, the city remained a ruffian’s
town, often on the verge of getting out of control. With the
excessive drinking and indulgence in other worldly temptations, the
city’s reputation as one of the most wicked in North America
grew.

   
In 1762, after the British fleet captured Havana, they
brought their booty to Halifax for sale and distribution. The new
merchandise from the exotic Spanish south amazed the people of the
town.