News of these disasters to the French arms at length
reached the anxious British colonies. The militia were
soon discharged. The danger seemed past. And the whole
population spent a merrier Christmas than any one of them
had dared to hope for.

In May of the next year, 1747, La Jonquiere again sailed
for Louisbourg. But when he was only four days out he
was overtaken off Cape Finisterre by a superior British
fleet, under Anson and Warren, and was totally defeated,
after a brave resistance.

In 1748 the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle gave Louisbourg
back to the French. The British colonies were furious,
New England particularly so. But the war at large had
not gone severely enough against the French to force them
to abandon a stronghold on which they had set their
hearts, and for which they were ready to give up any fair
equivalent. The contemporary colonial sneer, often repeated
since, and quite commonly believed, was that 'the important
island of Cape Breton was exchanged for a petty factory
in India.' This was not the case. Every power was weary
of the war. But France was ready to go on with it rather
than give up her last sea link with Canada. Unless this
one point was conceded the whole British Empire would
have been involved in another vast, and perhaps quite
barren, campaign. The only choice the British negotiators
could apparently make was a choice between two evils.
And of the two they chose the less.