thrown aside. Not one attacker really got home. Meanwhile
the leading boats in the little cove were being knocked
into splinters by the storm of shot. The rest sheered
off. None but the hundred and fifty men ashore were left
to keep up the fight with the garrison. For once the odds
were entirely with the French, who fired from under
perfect cover, while the unfortunate Provincials fired
back from the open rocks. This exchange of shots went
on till daylight, when one hundred and nineteen Provincials
surrendered at discretion. Their total loss was one
hundred and eighty-nine, nearly half the force employed.

Despairing Louisbourg naturally made the most of this
complete success. The bells were rung and the cannon were
fired to show the public joy and to put the best face on
the general situation. Du Chambon surpassed himself in
gross exaggerations. He magnified the hundred and fifty
men ashore into a thousand, and the two hundred and fifty
afloat into eight hundred; while he bettered both these
statements by reporting that the whole eighteen hundred
had been destroyed except the hundred and nineteen who
had been taken prisoners.

Du Chambon's triumph was short-lived. The indefatigable
Provincials began a battery at Lighthouse Point, which
commanded the island at less than half a mile. They had
seized this position some time before and called it
Gorham's Post, after the colonel whose regiment held it.
Fourteen years later there was another and more famous
Gorham's Post, on the south shore of the St Lawrence near