United States or Wallis and Futuna ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Early on the next morning a council of war was held, at which were present Drucour, Franquet, Desgouttes, naval commander, Houllière, commander of the regulars, and the several chiefs of battalions. Franquet presented a memorial setting forth the state of the fortifications.
A fleet of fourteen men-of-war, with a crew of nearly three thousand men, and five hundred and sixty-two guns, were in the harbour. Chevalier Drucour was governor of the island, and conducted the defences with skill and resolution, and had Admiral Desgouttes been as brave and capable as the former, Louisbourg would hardly have fallen so easily.
Desgouttes, the naval commander, withdrew the "Aréthuse" from her exposed position, where her fire had greatly annoyed the besiegers. The shot-holes in her sides were plugged up, and in the dark night of the fourteenth of July she was towed through the obstructions in the mouth of the harbor, and sent to France to report the situation of Louisbourg.
NOTE. Four long and minute French diaries of the siege of Louisbourg are before me. The first, that of Drucour, covers a hundred and six folio pages, and contains his correspondence with Amherst, Boscawen, and Desgouttes. The second is that of the naval captain Tourville, commander of the ship "Capricieux," and covers fifty pages. The third is by an officer of the garrison whose name does not appear. The fourth, of about a hundred pages, is by another officer of the garrison, and is also anonymous. It is an excellent record of what passed each day, and of the changing conditions, moral and physical, of the besieged. These four Journals, though clearly independent of each other, agree in nearly all essential particulars. I have also numerous letters from the principal officers, military, naval, and civil, engaged in the defence, Drucour, Desgouttes, Houllière, Beaussier, Marolles, Tourville, Courserac, Franquet, Villejouin, Prévost, and Querdisien. These, with various other documents relating to the siege, were copied from the originals in the Archives de la Marine. Among printed authorities on the French side may be mentioned Pichon, Lettres et Mémoires pour servir
Word Of The Day