' This was not the case. Every power was weary
of the war. But France was ready to go on with it rather
than give up her last sea link with Canada. Unless this
one point was conceded the whole British Empire would
have been involved in another vast, and perhaps quite
barren, campaign. The only choice the British negotiators
could apparently make was a choice between two evils.
And of the two they chose the less.
CHAPTER IV
LOST FOR EVER
1758
The ten years of the second French regime in Louisbourg
were divided into very different halves. During the first
five years, from 1749 to 1753, the mighty rivals were as
much at peace, all over their conflicting frontiers, as
they ever had been in the past. But from 1754 to 1758 a
great and, this time, a decisive war kept drawing
continually nearer, until its strangling coils at last
crushed Louisbourg to death.
Three significant events marked 1749, the first of the
five peaceful years. Louisbourg was handed over to its
new French garrison; the British founded Halifax; and
the Imperial government indemnified New England in full
for the siege of 1745.
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