Amherst on his part
sent to his enemy letters and messages from wounded Frenchmen in his
hands, adding his compliments to Madame Drucour, with an expression of
regret for the disquiet to which she was exposed, begging her at the
same time to accept a gift of pineapples from the West Indies. She
returned his courtesy by sending him a basket of wine; after which
amenities the cannon roared again. Madame Drucour was a woman of heroic
spirit. Every day she was on the ramparts, where her presence roused the
soldiers to enthusiasm; and every day with her own hand she fired three
cannon to encourage them.
The English lines grew closer and closer, and their fire more and more
destructive. Desgouttes, the naval commander, withdrew the "Arethuse"
from her exposed position, where her fire had greatly annoyed the
besiegers. The shot-holes in her sides were plugged up, and in the dark
night of the fourteenth of July she was towed through the obstructions
in the mouth of the harbor, and sent to France to report the situation
of Louisbourg. More fortunate than her predecessor, she escaped the
English in a fog. Only five vessels now remained afloat in the harbor,
and these were feebly manned, as the greater part of their officers and
crews had come ashore, to the number of two thousand, lodging under
tents in the town, amid the scarcely suppressed murmurs of the army
officers.
On the eighth of July news came that the partisan Boishebert was
approaching with four hundred Acadians, Canadians, and Micmacs to
attack the English outposts and detachments.
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