Louisbourg and harry the coast to the south. Every ship
brought in further and still more alarming particulars.
The usual exaggerations gained the usual credence. But
the real force, if properly handled and combined, was
dangerous enough. It consisted of fourteen sail of the
line and twenty-one frigates, with transports carrying
over three thousand veteran troops; altogether, about
17,000 men, or more than twice as many as those in the
contingents lately raised for taking Canada.

New York and Massachusetts at once recalled their Crown
Point expeditions. Boston was garrisoned by 8,000 men.
All the provinces did their well-scared best. There was
no danger except along the coast; for there were enough
armed men to have simply mobbed to death any three thousand
Frenchmen who marched into the hostile continent, which
would engulf them if they lost touch with the fleet, and
wear them out if they kept communications open. Those
who knew anything of war knew this perfectly well; and
they more than half suspected that the French force had
been doubled or trebled by the panic-mongers. But the
panic spread, and spread inland, for all that. No British
country had ever been so thoroughly alarmed since England
had watched the Great Armada sailing up the Channel.

The poets and preachers quickly changed their tune. Ames's
Almanac for 1746 had recently edified Bostonians with a
song of triumph over fallen Louisbourg:

Bright Hesperus, the Harbinger of Day,