The great military event of the campaign of 1745 was the capture of Louisburg by colonial troops. In this gallant feat of arms which fills so bright a page of colonial annals Rhode Island bore her part--especially through the Tartar, which, supported by two other war sloops, defeated at Famme Goose Bay a flotilla which was advancing with large reinforcements to the relief of the enemy. Captain Fones, who commanded the Tartar in this memorable campaign, has not received the honorable mention to which he was entitled for his gallantry and skill. New exertions were required for securing Louisburg, and the colonies were again called upon to furnish men and supplies. In this also Rhode Island bore her part, propping as best she might her tottering treasury and using impressment for raising men. When the war was over England acknowledged her services by special grants. In this year Rhode Island lost one of her faithful sons, Colonel John Cranston, son of the popular Governor, and commander of her forces at the capture of Port Royal. Towards the close of the year another great loss, though of another kind, fell upon the Colony. Two new privateers, mounting twenty-two guns each, with crews of over two hundred men went to sea the day before Christmas in a gale of wind and were never heard of again. Privateers held a place in war then which they do not hold now, and there was bitter sorrowing in more than two hundred households when the months passed away and no tidings of husband or father or brother came. The success of the expedition against Louisburg increased the desire to carry the war into Canada. Commissioners from the colonies were invited to meet and take council together concerning the common interest. Here we meet for the first time the names of Stephen Hopkins and William Ellery, whose names stand side by side on the Declaration of Independence, which is already drawing nigh. The sense of common interest and mutual dependence gradually gains ground. Every exertion was made to call out the strength of the Colony. Popular feeling went with government and strengthened its hand for the great contest. Canada and Indian warfare were inseparably connected in the minds of the people, who, to rid themselves of the dreaded enemy submitted cheerfully to what they would otherwise have resisted as tyranny. Impressment was authorized by the Assembly.