Pitt proposed, as the work of the first campaign, to take Louisburg--the only harbour which France possessed on the Atlantic; to take Fort du Quesne, in the valley of the Ohio; and Ticonderoga, in the north. He was able to accomplish more than he hoped. Louisburg was taken; Cape Breton and the island of St. John became English ground. Communication between France and her endangered colony was henceforth impossible. The French ships were captured or destroyed, and the flag of France disappeared from the Canadian coast. Fort du Quesne fell into English hands, and assumed the English name of Pittsburg, under which it has become famous as a centre of peaceful industry. France had no longer a footing in the Mississippi valley. [Sidenote: 1758 A.D.] At Ticonderoga, incapable generalship caused shameful miscarriage: the English attack failed, and a lamentable slaughter was sustained. But the progress which had been made afforded ground to expect that one campaign more would terminate the dominion of France on the American continent. The spirit of the British nation rose with the return of that success to which they had long been strangers. Pitt laid his plans with the view of immediate conquest. Parliament expressed strongly its approbation of his policy and his management, and voted liberal sums to confirm the zeal of the colonists. The people gave enthusiastic support to the war. Their supreme concern for the time was to humble France by seizing all her American possessions. The men of New England and New York lent their eager help to a cause which was peculiarly their own. The internal condition of Canada prepared an easy way for a resolute invader. The harvest had been scanty; no supply could now be hoped for from abroad, for the English ships maintained strict blockade; food was scarce; a corrupt and unpopular Government seized, under pretence of public necessity, grain which was needed to keep in life the families of the unhappy colonists. There were no more than fifteen thousand men fit to bear arms in the colony, and these were for the most part undisciplined and reluctant to fight. The Governor vainly endeavoured to stimulate their valour by fiery proclamations. The gloom and apathy of approaching overthrow already filled their hearts. [Sidenote: 1759 A.D.] It was the design of Pitt to attack simultaneously all the remaining strongholds of France. An army of eleven thousand men, moving northward from New York by the valley of the Hudson, took with ease the forts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point; and the fair region which lies around Lake Champlain and Lake George passed for ever away from the dominion of France. A smaller force attacked Fort Niagara, the sole representative now of French authority on Lake Ontario. This stronghold fell, and France had no longer a footing on the shores of the Great Lakes.