News of these disasters to the French arms at length
reached the anxious British colonies. The militia were
soon discharged. The danger seemed past. And the whole
population spent a merrier Christmas than any one of them
had dared to hope for.
In May of the next year, 1747, La Jonquiere again sailed
for Louisbourg. But when he was only four days out he
was overtaken off Cape Finisterre by a superior British
fleet, under Anson and Warren, and was totally defeated,
after a brave resistance.
In 1748 the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle gave Louisbourg
back to the French. The British colonies were furious,
New England particularly so. But the war at large had
not gone severely enough against the French to force them
to abandon a stronghold on which they had set their
hearts, and for which they were ready to give up any fair
equivalent. The contemporary colonial sneer, often repeated
since, and quite commonly believed, was that 'the important
island of Cape Breton was exchanged for a petty factory
in India.
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