laughable in the extreme, though the French found them no matter for laughter. Skilled engineers the besiegers had none, and few if any skilled artillerymen, but they went to work with the best of spirits and good humour in their own casual fashion, which puzzled the French far more than a regular siege in form. To be brief, with the help of gunners from the fleet and of extraordinary good fortune they succeeded in capturing the fortress after a siege of six weeks. The performance is certainly one of the curiosities of military history, but must be passed over in this place since it forms no part of the story of the British Army.[248] The colonists were not a little proud of the feat, and with right good reason. Nor did their gallant efforts pass without recognition in England. Pepperrell, who had amply justified Shirley's choice, was created a baronet; and on Warren's suggestion[249] the remains of the colonial troops were taken into English pay and formed into two regiments, with Pepperrell and Shirley for their colonels. [Sidenote: 1746.] Though the colonial garrison suffered terribly from pestilence during the ensuing winter,[250] Shirley was anxious to complete the conquest of Canada in 1746; and Newcastle received his proposals with encouragement at Whitehall. Three British regiments--the Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, and Forty-fifth--arrived in April to occupy Louisburg, and Newcastle promised five battalions more under Lieutenant-General St. Clair, together with a fleet under Warren, to aid in the operations. It was agreed that the British and the levies of New England should sail up the St. Lawrence to attack Quebec, while the remainder should, as usual, march against Montreal by way of Lake Champlain. The colonists took up the enterprise with great spirit, and the Provincial Assemblies of seven colonies voted a total force of forty-three hundred men. The French in Canada took the alarm and made frantic preparations for defence; but though the colonists were ready and eager at the time appointed, the British troops never appeared; Newcastle having detained them in Europe for the ridiculous descent, already described elsewhere, upon L'Orient. Shirley, undismayed, then decided to turn his little force against Crown Point; when all New England was alarmed by intelligence of a vast French armament on its way to retake Louisburg, recapture Acadia and burn Boston. Then the colonists took fright in their turn and equipped themselves for defence with desperate energy; but once again there was no occasion for panic. The French fleet sailed indeed, but after a voyage of disasters reached the coast of Nova Scotia only to be shattered and dispersed by a terrible storm. The Commander-in-Chief died of a broken heart, his successor threw himself on his own sword in despair, and after some weeks of helpless lingering in the harbour which now bears the name of Halifax, the fragments of the French fleet returned almost in a state of starvation to France.