Day after day and week after week went on. The people grew almost heartsick with anxiety; for the flower of the country was at peril in this adventurous expedition. It was now daybreak on the morning of the 3d of July.
But hark! what sound is this? The hurried clang of a bell! There is the Old North pealing suddenly out! — there the Old South strikes in! — now the peal comes from the church in Brattle Street! — the bells of nine or ten steeples are all flinging their iron voices at once upon the morning breeze! Is it joy, or alarm? There goes the roar of a cannon too! A royal salute is thundered forth. And now we hear the loud exulting shout of a multitude assembled in the street. Huzza! huzza! Louisburg has surrendered! Huzza!
“O Grandfather, how glad I should have been to live in those times!” cried Charley. “And what reward did the king give to General Pepperell and Governor Shirley?”
“He made Pepperell a baronet; so that he was now to be called Sir William Pepperell,” replied Grandfather. “He likewise appointed both Pepperell and Shirley to be colonels in the royal army. These rewards, and higher ones, were well deserved; for this was the greatest triumph that the English met with in the whole course of that war. General Pepperell became a man of great fame. I have seen a full-length portrait of him, representing him in a splendid scarlet uniform, standing before the walls of Louisburg, while several bombs are falling through the air.”
“But did the country gain any real good by the conquest of Louisburg?” asked Laurence. “Or was all the benefit reaped by Pepperell and Shirley?”
“The English Parliament,” replied Grandfather, “agreed to pay the colonists for all the expenses of the siege. Accordingly, in 1749, two hundred and fifteen chests of Spanish dollars and one hundred casks of copper coin were brought from England to Boston. The whole amount was about a million of dollars. Twenty-seven carts and trucks carried this money from the wharf to the provincial treasury. Was not this a pretty liberal reward?”
“The mothers of the young men who were killed at the siege of Louisburg would not have thought it so,” said Laurence.
“No; Laurence,” rejoined Grandfather; “and every warlike achievement involves an amount of physical and moral evil, for which all the gold in the Spanish mines would not be the slightest recompense. But we are to consider that this siege was one of the occasions on which the colonists tested their ability for war, and thus were prepared for the great contest of the Revolution. In that point of view, the valor of our forefathers was its own reward.”
Grandfather went on to say that the success of the expedition against Louisburg induced Shirley and Pepperell to form a scheme for conquering Canada, This plan, however, was not carried into execution.
In the year 1746 great terror was excited by the arrival of a formidable French fleet upon the coast It was commanded by the Duke d’Anville, and consisted of forty ships of war, besides vessels with soldiers on board. With this force the French intended to retake Louisburg, and afterwards to ravage the whole of New England. Many people were ready to give up the country for lost.
But the hostile fleet met with so many disasters and losses by storm and shipwreck, that the Duke d’Anville is said to have poisoned himself in despair. The officer next in command threw himself upon his sword and perished. Thus deprived of their commanders, the remainder of the ships returned to France. This was as great a deliverance for New England as that which Old England had experienced in the days of Queen Elizabeth, when the Spanish Armada was wrecked upon her coast.
“In 1747,” proceeded Grandfather, “Governor Shirley was driven from the Province House, not by a hostile fleet and army, but by a mob of the Boston people. They were so incensed at the conduct of the British Commodore Knowles, who had impressed some of their fellow-citizens, that several thousands of them surrounded the council chamber and threw stones and brickbats into the windows. The governor attempted to pacify them; but not succeeding, he thought it necessary to leave the town and take refuge within the walls of Castle William. Quiet was not restored until Commodore Knowles had sent back the impressed men. This affair was a flash of spirit that might have warned the English not to venture upon any oppressive measures against their colonial brethren.”
Peace being declared between France and England in 1748, the governor had now an opportunity to sit at his ease in Grandfather’s chair. Such repose, however, appears not to have suited his disposition; for in the following year he went to England, and thence was despatched to France on public business. Meanwhile, as Shirley had not resigned his office, Lieutenant-Governor Phips acted as chief magistrate in his stead.
CHAPTER VIII. THE OLD FRENCH WAR AND THE ACADIAN EXILES
IN the early twilight of Thanksgiving Eve came Laurence, and Clara, and Charley, and little Alice, hand in hand, and stood in a semicircle round Grandfather’s chair. They had been joyous throughout that day of festivity, mingling together in all kinds of play, so that the house had echoed with their airy mirth.
Grandfather, too, had been happy though not mirthful. He felt that this was to be set down as one of the good Thanksgivings of his life. In truth, all his former Thanksgivings had borne their part in the present one; for his years of infancy, and youth, and manhood, with their blessings and their griefs, had flitted before him while he sat silently in the great chair. Vanished scenes had been pictured in the air. The forms of departed friends had visited him. Voices to be heard no more on earth had sent an echo from the infinite and the eternal. These shadows, if such they were, seemed almost as real to him as what was actually present, — as the merry shouts and laughter of the children, — as their figures, dancing like sunshine before his eyes.
He felt that the past was not taken from him. The happiness of former days was a possession forever. And there was something in the mingled sorrow of his lifetime that became akin to happiness, after being long treasured in the depths of his heart. There it underwent a change, and grew more precious than pure gold.
And now came the children, somewhat aweary with their wild play, and sought the quiet enjoyment of Grandfather’s talk. The good old gentleman rubbed his eyes and smiled round upon them all. He was glad, as most aged people are, to find that he was yet of consequence, and could give pleasure to the world. After being so merry all day long, did these children desire to hear his sober talk? Oh, then, old Grandfather had yet a place to fill among living men, — or at least among boys and girls!
“Begin quick, Grandfather,” cried little Alice; “for pussy wants to hear you.”
And truly our yellow friend, the cat, lay upon the hearth-rug, basking in the warmth of the fire, pricking up her ears, and turning her head from the children to Grandfather, and from Grandfather to the children as if she felt herself very sympathetic with them all. A loud purr, like the singing of a teakettle or the hum of a spinning-wheel, testified that she was as comfortable and happy as a cat could be. For puss had feasted; and therefore, like Grandfather and the children, had kept a good Thanksgiving.
“Does pussy want to hear me?” said Grandfathers smiling. “Well, we must please pussy, if we can.”
And so he took up the history of the chair from the epoch of the peace of 1748. By one of the provisions of the treaty, Louisburg, which the New-Englanders had been at so much pains to take, was restored to the King of France.
The French were afraid that, unless their colonies should be better defended than heretofore, another war might deprive them of the whole. Almost as soon as peace was declared,
