Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/330

310 After thirty years of a qualified sort of peace between France and England, trouble again opened in 1743, which of course signified a renewal of open conflict between the Europeans and the red men here. The great and enormously costly stronghold of Louisburg, into which the constructive skill and the lavish outlay of France had been wrought for thirty years, was taken by a colonial and English army and fleet, and having capitulated on June 15, 1745, its vast stores and defences were removed. After this first capture it was restored to the French by treaty. It was again taken by the English in 1758, when its walls were dismantled, and all the toil and money spent upon it showed a heap of wreck. Another interval of rage and havoc followed. French fleets and armies were to sweep the coasts and destroy Boston, as well as drive out the English from all their Eastern strongholds; but tempests and deadly pestilence thwarted the enterprise. This war was closed by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748.

If one could search the depths and the soundings of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and of all the coasts of northern New England and the British Provinces, what harrowing secrets would be revealed of wrecks of heavily armed frigates, and of vessels of every name and size, which have gone down there in storm and battle, carrying with them their human freight sinking to death in the rage of passion or in the dreads and horrors of the method of their end! What engines of havoc, what implements, fabrics, and fruits of peaceful ingenuity and industry are buried in those dank chambers of the ocean, the watery trophies of the victory of the elements over the common spoilings of humanity!

After the English had held Acadia for thirty years, they had nothing to show for it except the cost of the charge. Many schemes and attempts were devised to bring in English settlers and residents. Here arose the troubles with the uncongenial and hostile people then in occupancy, the French Neutrals, who insisted upon remaining as French,