zealots of New England. Two trustworthy men, according to this
plan, were to be sent out at night before the French ramparts, one
of them carrying a wooden mallet with which he was to beat upon the
ground. The other was to place his ear to the ground and wherever a
concealed mine would give back a hollow sound was to make a cross
mark with chalk so that the New England boys would know where not
to walk when they attacked the fort. The French sentry meanwhile,
it was supposed, would be too confused by the unusual noise of the
thumping to take any action.

Within seven weeks after Shirley issued his proclamation
preparations for the expedition were complete. The force, all
told, numbered about four thousand men. Transports were easily
obtained in the harbor of Boston or in the towns adjoining. There
was a lack of cannon of large calibre, but it was known that the
French possessed cannon of large calibre, so cannon balls and
supplies to fit such guns were carried along, it being foreseen
that the army would capture sufficient of the French cannon to
supply its needs. Of other supplies there was a sufficiency and,
to overbalance the lack of any military training whatever in the
officers, Governor Shirley had written a long list of instructions
for the siege. These instructions, after going into such minute
directions as how to make fast the windows of the Governor’s
apartment at Louisburg, and outlining a complex series of military
manœuvres to be undertaken after dark by men who had no idea of the
country they would be in, ended with the words, “Notwithstanding
the instructions you have received from me I must leave you to act,
upon unforeseen emergencies, according to your best discretion.”

On Friday, April 5, 1745, the first of the transports arrived at
Canseau, the rendezvous, about sixty miles from Louisburg, and this
little post which had now a small French garrison changed hands
again. Captain Ammi Cutter was put in command with sixty-eight
men. On Sunday there was a great open-air concourse at which P