there was no rival fleet to fight, and unless other
circumstances were unusually propitious.

The entrance was defended by the Island Battery, which
flanked the approach with thirty-nine guns, and the Royal
Battery, which directly faced it with thirty guns. Some
temporary lines with a few more guns were prepared in
time of danger to prevent the enemy from landing in
Gabarus Bay, which ran for miles south-west of Louisbourg.
But the garrison, even with the militia, was never strong
enough to keep the enemy at arm's length from any one of
these positions. Moreover, the north-east peninsula,
where the lighthouse stood, commanded the Island Battery;
and the land side of Louisbourg itself was commanded by
a range of low hillocks less than half a mile away.

It was this land side, containing the citadel and other
works, which so impressed outsiders with the idea of
impregnable strength. The glacis was perfect--not an inch
of cover wherever you looked; and the approach was mostly
across a slimy bog. The ditch was eighty feet wide. The
walls rose over thirty feet above the ditch. There were
embrasures for one hundred and forty-eight guns all round;
though not more than ninety were ever actually mounted.
On the seaward face Louisbourg was not so strongly
fortified; but in the centre of this face there were a
deep ditch and high wall, with bastions on each immediate
flank, and lighter defences connecting these with the
landward face. A dozen streets were laid out, so as to
divide the whole town into conveniently square little