On November 23, 1744,
reinforcements and provisions were asked for, because
intelligence had been received that the New Englanders
were going to blockade Louisbourg the following summer.
At the same time, the discontent of the garrison had come
to a head, and a mutiny had broken out because the extra
working pay had not been forthcoming. After this the
discipline became, not sterner, but slacker than ever,
especially among the hireling Swiss. On February 8, 1745,
within three months of the first siege, a memorandum was
sent in to explain what was still required to finish the
works begun twenty-five years before.
But, after all, it was not so much the defective works
that really mattered as the defective garrison behind
them. English-speaking civilians who have written about
Louisbourg have sometimes taken partial account of the
ordinary Frenchman's repugnance to oversea duty in time
of peace and of the little worth of hireling foreigners
in time of war. But they have always ignored that steady
drip, drip, drip of deterioration which reduces the
efficiency of every garrison condemned to service in
remote and thoroughly uncongenial countries.
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