been left with the same wooden roof which the New Englanders
had put on thirteen years before. Again the British guns
converged their devastating fire on the point of danger,
and the whole place was burned to the ground.

Most of the troops were now deprived of all shelter. They
had no choice but to share the streets with a still larger
number of sailors than those to whom they had formerly
objected. Yet they had scarcely tried to settle down and
make the best of it before another batch of sailors came
crowding in from the last of the whole French fleet. At
one o'clock in the morning of July 25 a rousing British
cheer from the harbour had announced an attack on the
Prudent and the Bienfaisant by six hundred bluejackets,
who had stolen in, with muffled oars, just on the stroke
of midnight. Presently the sound of fighting died away,
and all was still. At first the nearest gunners on the
walls had lost their heads and begun blazing away at
random. But they were soon stopped; and neither side
dared fire, not knowing whom the shots might kill. Then,
as the escaping French came in to the walls, a bright
glare told that the Prudent was on fire. She had cut her
cable during the fight and was lying, hopelessly stranded,
right under the inner walls of Louisbourg. The Bienfaisant,
however, though now assailed by every gun the French
could bring to bear, was towed off to a snug berth beside
the Lighthouse Battery, the British bluejackets showing
the same disregard of danger as their gallant enemies
had shown on the 21st, when towing her to safety in the
opposite direction.