those were far away from English-speaking homes; while
heavy reverses close at hand brought down the adverse
balance. Pitt, the greatest of all civilian ministers of
War, was dismissed from office and not reinstated till
the British Empire had been without a cabinet for eleven
weeks. The French overran the whole of Hanover and rounded
up the Duke of Cumberland at Kloster-Seven. Mordaunt and
his pettifogging councils of war turned the joint expedition
against Rochefort into a complete fiasco; while Montcalm
again defeated the British in America by taking Fort
William Henry.

The taking of Louisbourg would have been a very welcome
victory in the midst of so much gloom. But the British
were engaged in party strife at home. They were disunited
in America. And neither the naval nor the military leader
of the joint expedition against Louisbourg was the proper
man to act either alone or with his colleague. Speed was
of prime importance. Yet Admiral Holbourne did not sail
from England for Halifax till May. General the Earl of
Loudoun was slower yet. He drew in the troops from the
northern frontier, concentrated them in New York, and
laid an embargo on shipping to keep a secret which was
already out. Finally, he and Sir Charles Hardy sailed
for Halifax to keep their rendezvous with Holbourne, from
whom no news had come. They arrived there before him;
but his fleet came limping in during the next ten days,
after a bad buffeting on its transatlantic voyage.

Loudoun now had nearly 12,000 men, whom he landed and