arson
Moody preached on the text “Thy people shall be willing in the day
of Thy power.” Parson Moody’s sermon was disturbed by the drilling
of an awkward squad whose men were learning how to handle a musket.

For three weeks the expedition lay at Canseau waiting for the ice
to clear from the northern waters, and then, on the morning of the
29th, it set out expecting to make Louisburg by nine o’clock that
evening and to take the French by surprise as Shirley had directed.
The French, of course, had been aware all the time of the location
of the enemy and had even had intelligence from Boston when the
affair was first bruited about. A lull in the wind caused a change
in the plan of taking the French by surprise and it was not until
the keen light of the following morning that the New Englanders
saw Louisburg, no very great sight at that, as the buildings of
the town were almost completely hid behind the massive walls which
encircled them.

And now how were matters going on inside the mighty walls? Badly,
it must be admitted. The garrison consisted of five hundred and
sixty regulars, of whom several companies were Swiss, and of about
fourteen hundred militia. The regulars were in bad condition and
had, indeed, the preceding Christmas, broken into mutiny because
of exasperation with bad rations and with having been given no
extra pay for work on the fortifications. Some of the officers
had lost all confidence in their men and the commandant, Chevalier
Duchambon, successor to Duquesnel, was a man of hesitant and
capricious mind. It is thus to be seen that the fortress was
fatally weak within though in material circumstances it was the
strongest on the North American continent.

The landing of the provincial forces was accomplished creditably
about three miles below the fortifications. Vaughan then led about
four hundred men to the town and saluted it with three cheers, much
to the discomfiture of the garrison, which was entirely unused to
this kind of warfare. He then marched unresisted to the northeast
arm of