The garrison consisted of between 500 and 600 regular troops, with 1,300 to 1,400 militia.[6] Among the regulars were Swiss soldiers, who had mutinied at the preceding Christmas time and infected their French comrades with the spirit of insubordination. They mutinied, it was said, about their rations, as to the 'butter and bacon' which the King supplied. In Louisbourg, as elsewhere in Canada, peculation was rife, and officers and commissaries made profit at the privates' expense. The Governor, Duquesnel, had died in the previous October. His successor, Duchambon, was not the man for a crisis. The walls were there and brave men behind them, but confidence in a determined and prescient leader was wanting; and, as the consequence of maladministration, we read that 'the regular soldiers were distrusted, so that it was necessary to charge the inhabitants with the most dangerous duties.' [Footnote 6: It is difficult to make out from the _Lettre d'un habitant_ whether or not the 1,300 to 1,400 men included the regulars, but probably not.] {201} [Sidenote: _The English land in Gabarus Bay._] [Sidenote: _The Grand Battery occupied by the English._] Having waited for about three weeks at Canso, and rebuilt and garrisoned the blockhouse, the New Englanders went on to their destination. On April 30 the transports sailed into Gabarus Bay, making for Flat Point, three miles due west of Louisbourg. A small French force was detached to oppose them; but the boats made good their landing, two miles further to the west, at a little inlet called Freshwater Cove. Here the whole force of 4,000 men was disembarked; and, two days later, a party under Vaughan, having marched behind the town, found the Grand Battery deserted and occupied it, turning its guns in due course upon their rightful owners. The precipitate abandonment of this battery by the French, on the ground that its defences were inadequate, proved a fatal blunder, giving the besiegers a firm position in the rear of the town, whereas the direct attack was over swamp and marsh. [Sidenote: _Beginning of the siege._] [Sidenote: _Capture of the 'Vigilant.'_] The siege now began in earnest. Warren's squadron, which was at a later stage reinforced from England, blockaded the harbour, and on May 19 achieved an important success in capturing the _Vigilant_, a large French ship of war, whose supplies of food and ammunition, destined for the garrison, passed instead into the hands of the besiegers. Warren could not however enter the harbour, as long as the Island Battery commanded the entrance. [Sidenote: _Spirit of the New Englanders._]