A boat
reluctantly put back for him. Then, leaving the ship to
her fate, the crew pulled for Penzance, where the people
had just been celebrating the glorious victory of
Louisbourg.
The French loss had been enough without this. About one
in five of all the combatants had been hit. Twice as many
were on the sick list. Officers and men, officials and
traders, fishermen and other inhabitants, all lost
something, in certain cases everything they had; and it
was to nothing but the sheer ruin of all French power
beside the American Atlantic that Madame Drucour waved
her long white scarf in a last farewell.
France was stung to the quick. Her sea link gone, she
feared that the whole of Canada would soon be won by the
same relentless British sea-power, which was quite as
irresistible as it was ubiquitous in the mighty hands of
Pitt. So deeply did her statesmen feel her imminent danger
on the sea, and resent this particular British triumph
in the world-wide 'Maritime War,' that they took the
unusual course of sending the following circular letter
to all the Powers of Europe:
We are advised that Louisbourg capitulated to the
English on July 26, We fully realize the consequences
of such a grave event.
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