what Pepperrell called "almost incredible hardships." They had
landed cannon on a lee shore when the great waves pounded to
pieces their boats and when men wading breast high were crushed
by the weight of iron. Harnessed two and three hundred to a gun,
they had dragged the pieces one after the other over rocks and
through bog and slime, and had then served them in the open under
the fire of the enemy. New Englanders had died like "rotten
sheep" in Louisbourg. The graves of nearly a thousand of them lay
on the bleak point outside the wall. What they had gained by this
sacrifice must now be abandoned. A spirit of discontent with the
mother country went abroad and, after this sacrifice of colonial
interests, never wholly died out. It is not without interest to
note in passing that Gridley, the engineer who drew the plan of
the defenses of Louisbourg, thirty years later drew those of
Bunker Hill to protect men of the English race who fought against
England.

Every one knew that the peace of 1748 was only a truce and
Britain began promptly new defenses. Into the spacious harbor of
Chebucto, which three years earlier had been the scene of the
sorrows of d'Anville's fleet, there sailed in June, 1749, a
considerable British squadron bent on a momentous errand. It
carried some thousands of settlers, Edward Cornwallis, a governor
clothed with adequate authority, and a force sufficient for the
defense of the new foundation. Cornwallis was delighted with the
prospect. "All the officers agree the harbour is the finest they
have ever seen"--this, of Halifax harbor with the great Bedford
Basin, opening beyond it, spacious enough to contain the fleets
of the world. "The Country is one continuous Wood, no clear spot
to be seen or heard of. D'Anville's fleet...cleared no