His next
dispatch assured the Duke of Newcastle that nobody else
could have quelled the incipient mutiny so well. Nor was
the boast, in one sense, vain, since nobody else had the
authority to raise the men's pay.
But discontent again became rife when it began to dawn
on the Provincials that they would have to garrison
Louisbourg till the next open season. The unwelcome truth
was that, except for a few raw recruits, no reliefs were
forthcoming from any quarter. The promised regulars had
left Gibraltar so late that they had to be sent to Virginia
for the winter, lest the sudden change to cold and clammy
Louisbourg should put them on the sick list. The two new
regiments, Shirley's and Pepperrell's, which were to be
recruited in the American colonies and form part of the
Imperial Army, could not be raised in time. There even
seemed to be some doubt as to whether they could be raised
at all. The absence of Pepperrell from New England, the
hatred of garrison duty in Louisbourg, and resentment at
seeing some Englishmen commissioned to command Americans,
were three great obstacles in the way.
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