Thus the grand fortress fell, as the Puritan historian describes it, upon the attack of "four thousand undisciplined militia or volunteers, officered by men who had, with one or two exceptions, never seen a shot fired in anger in all their lives, encamped in an open country and sadly deficient in suitable artillery." He continues: "As the troops, entering the fortress, beheld the strength of the place, their hearts for the first time sank within them. 'God has gone out of his way,' said they, 'in a remarkable and most miraculous manner, to incline the hearts of the French to give up and deliver this strong city into our hands.'" The capture was the marvel of the time, and caused the greatest rejoicings throughout the British Empire; while Pepperell, who was made a Baronet, attributed his success, not to the guns nor the ships, but to the constant prayers of New England, daily arising from every village in behalf of the absent army. This victory at Louisbourg gave them an experience to which is attributed the American success at Bunker Hill thirty years afterwards. Colonel Gridley, who planned Pepperell's batteries, is said to have laid out the hastily constructed entrenchments on Bunker Hill, and the same old drums that beat in the siege of Louisbourg were at Bunker Hill, the spirit which this great victory imparted to the Yankee soldiers having never deteriorated. The French were terribly chagrined at the loss of their great fortress, and in 1746 they sent out the "French Armada" of seventy ships under the Duc d'Anville, instructed to "occupy Louisbourg, reduce Nova Scotia, destroy Boston, and ravage the coast of New England." But storms wrecked and dispersed the fleet, and the vexed and disappointed commander died of apoplexy, his Vice-Admiral killing himself. Then a second expedition of forty-four ships was sent under La Jonquiere to retake Louisbourg, but the English squadrons attacked and destroyed this fleet off Cape Finisterre, Admirals Warren and Anson gaining one of the greatest British naval victories of the eighteenth century. The fortress which thus could not be retaken by arms was, however, to the general astonishment, surrendered back to France by diplomacy. The peace of Aix la Chapelle in 1748 ended the war by restoring Louisbourg and Cape Breton Island to France, and the historian bluntly records that "after four years of warfare in all parts of the world, after all the waste of blood and treasure, the war ended just where it began." France then rebuilt, improved and strengthened the idolized fortress, sending it a powerful garrison.