that the Towne of Louisbourg be Attacked this Night.'
But, confronted with 'a great Dissatysfaction in many of
the officers and Souldiers at the designed attack of the
towne this Night,' it was 'Advised, Unanimously,' by a
second council, called in great haste, 'that the Said
Attack be deferred for the Present.' This 'Present' lasted
during the rest of the siege.

Once the New Englanders had settled down, however, they
wisely began to increase their weight of metal, as well
as to decrease the range at which they used it. They set
to work with a will to make a breach at the North-West
Gate of Louisbourg, near where the inner angle of the
walls abutted on the harbour; and they certainly needed
all their indomitable perseverance when it came to arming
their new 'North-Western' or 'Titcomb's Battery.' The
twenty-two pounders had required two hundred men apiece.
The forty-two pounders took three hundred. Two of these
unwieldy guns were hauled a couple of miles round the
harbour, in the dark, from that 'Royal Battery' which
Vaughan had taken 'by the Grace of God and the courage
of 13 Men,' and then successfully mounted at 'Titcomb's,'
just where they could do the greatest damage to their
former owners, the French.

Well-trained gunners were exceedingly scarce. Pepperrell
could find only six among his four thousand men. But
Warren lent him three more, whom he could ill spare, as
no one knew when a fleet might come out from France. With
these nine instructors to direct them Pepperrell's men