Beyond lies a hamlet of fishermen by the edge of the
water, and a few scattered dwellings dot the rough hills, bristled with
stunted firs, that gird the quiet basin; while close at hand, within the
precinct of the vanished fortress, stand two small farmhouses. All else
is a solitude of ocean, rock, marsh, and forest.[576]
[Footnote 576: Louisbourg is described as I saw it ten days before
writing the above, after an easterly gale.]
At the beginning of June, 1758, the place wore another aspect. Since the
peace of Aix-la-Chapelle vast sums had been spent in repairing and
strengthening it; and Louisbourg was the strongest fortress in French or
British America. Nevertheless it had its weaknesses. The original plan
of the works had not been fully carried out; and owing, it is said, to
the bad quality of the mortar, the masonry of the ramparts was in so
poor a condition that it had been replaced in some parts with fascines.
The circuit of the fortifications was more than a mile and a half, and
the town contained about four thousand inhabitants. The best buildings
in it were the convent, the hospital, the King's storehouses, and the
chapel and governor's quarters, which were under the same roof. Of the
private houses, only seven or eight were of stone, the rest being humble
wooden structures, suited to a population of fishermen. The garrison
consisted of the battalions of Artois, Bourgogne, Cambis, and
Volontaires Etrangers, with two companies of artillery and twenty-four
of colony troops from Canada,--in all three thousand and eighty regular
troops, besides officers;[577] and to these were added a body of armed
inhabitants and a band of Indians.
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