Blupete's History of Nova Scotia

Significant Historical Happenings: 1757.
In Connection With: Bk. 1, Pt. 7. - "The Second Siege of Louisbourg.

As The Year Opens:
§Jedediah Strutt and his brother-in-law, William Woollatt are seeking a patent in London for their "Derby-rib stocking frame."
§March 14th, 1757: Admiral John Byng (1704-57) having been court marshaled, found guilty of his neglect the year earlier at Minorca, is shot on the quarter deck of the 74 gun ship Monarch as she lay riding at her anchor in Portsmouth Harbour.
§With war having been declared the year before, pitting Austria and England against Prussia and France, Pitt determined the best policy was not to bog down the English forces in Europe: but, rather, to send money to Austria so that they might do the fighting. For the English, given their superior naval strength: America was where the greatest military opportunity lay.

MAY, 1757:
§May 8th: Five thousand two hundred military men aboard 45 transports, escorted by 15 naval ships of the line depart Cork, Ireland. They were under sealed orders, their unknown destination was Halifax, Nova Scotia.

JUNE, 1757:
§June 20th: Tucked-in at Louisbourg Harbour were three separate fleets of French men-of-war. Lieutenant-General Dubois de la Motte was in command of these 24 menacing gun ships.
§June 30: Loudoun arrived at Halifax from New York with 87 transports and six navy ships; he brings with him "six battalions," close on to 10,000 men.

JULY, 1757:
§July 9th: Vice-admiral Holburne, badly delayed arrived with his fleet at Halifax. Thus in the summer of 1757, at Halifax, there was to be around 12,000 army men; to be added to this would be close on to 8,000 naval men, coming and going. All, -- in a city that could account for but 1,200 civilians.

AUGUST, 1757:
§August 16: Intelligence having been received of Louisbourg's strength, and having called off the attack, Loudoun leaves with most of his forces for New York.
§August 25: Troops withdrawn from Lawrencetown by order. Lawrencetown, located 10 miles east of Halifax, and which had been established in June of 1754, was abandoned. The Lawrencetown settlers were called to Halifax. This, "because the Indian menace was preventing them cultivating their fields or even venturing outside their houses." With the three regiments that Loudoun left behind, the English strongholds in peninsular Nova Scotia are all strengthened: Halifax, Fort Anne (Annapolis Royal), Fort Edward (Windsor) and Fort Cumberland (as Fort Beauséjour at the isthmus was to be renamed). (See map.)

SEPTEMBER, 1757:
§September 12th: At Louisbourg, a bell, taken off of an English ship by Captain La Croix, "commanding a privateer of this colony" is installed and baptized ("Georges-Angelique") at the parish church.
§September 19th: Twenty English, men-o-war under Holburne, Hardy and Holmes dance off the mouth of Louisbourg Harbour, daring the French fleet of 24 ships to come out and do battle. So close they came to the walls of Louisbourg that the big French guns took shots at these large fluttering targets. The French fleet, however, refuse to come out.
§September 25th, 1757 (Sunday): A violent North Atlantic storm, off the coast of eastern Cape Breton, damages and scatters the British fleet.

OCTOBER, 1757:
§October 4th: Holburne hauls into Halifax with the remainder of his storm shattered fleet: eight men-of-war. One more, the Defiance, was to come in on the 7th.
§October 30th: The French Admiral, de la Motte departs Louisbourg for Brest leaving two of his ships behind.

As The Year Closes:
§November 6th, 1757: Hardy, who had been detached while still at sea at the end of September with three of the Holburne's fleet, with instructions and despatches, arrives at England with news of the fleet's disaster.
§November 7th: Waldo writes to Pitt and includes a detailed plan of attack on Louisbourg.
§November 14th: Holburne departs Halifax in his flag ship the 80 gun Newark, leaving the remainder of his fleet of eight men-of-war to winter over at Halifax. He arrives in England on December 7th.
§November 23rd: de la Motte arrives at Brest with "sickly crews."
§Frederick the Great of Austria, whose treasury had been transfused with English money, flung himself and his troops on the French army and annihilated it in the victory of Rossbach. Pitt was only too happy to continue to leave his ally to deal with the French on the continent, providing (as this commercial nation island was so very able to do) to their allies the supplies of war; thus, to leave the English army to engage itself in other theatres.


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Peter Landry
2012 (2020)