us.' Five days later every single gun in the Island
Battery was dumb. At the same time Amherst occupied Green
Hill, directly opposite the citadel and only half a mile
away. Yet Drucour, with dauntless resolution, resisted
for another month. His object was not to save his own
doomed fortress but Quebec.

He needed all his resolution. The British were pressing
him on every side, determined to end the siege in time
to transfer their force elsewhere. Louisbourg itself was
visibly weakening. The walls were already crumbling under
Amherst's converging fire, though the British attack had
not yet begun in earnest. Surely, thoroughly, and with
an irresistible zeal, the besiegers had built their road,
dragged up their guns, and begun to worm their way forward,
under skilfully constructed cover, towards the right land
face of Louisbourg, next to the south-west harbour, where
the ground was less boggy than on the left. The French
ships fired on the British approaches; but, with one
notable exception, not effectively, because some of them
masked others, while they were all under British fire
themselves, both from the Lighthouse and the Royal
Batteries, as well as from smaller batteries along the
harbour. Vauquelin, who shares with Iberville the honour
of being the naval hero of New France, was the one
exception. He fought the Arethuse so splendidly that he
hampered the British left attack long enough to give
Louisbourg a comparative respite for a few hasty repairs.

But nothing could now resist Boscawen if the British