“A Captain Cunningham past through Guildford last night express from the Governor of Hallifax in Nova Scotia with advice that Col. Warburton of the land forces had taken a fort at the back of Louisbourg called Bouche, (by the bye the most material Fort belonging to the French settlements), 500 men and 20 cannon; that the Colonel had blocked up Louisbourg by land, and Admiral Boscawen had done the same by sea; that the town was very bare of provisions and must soon surrender, and the sooner as the Colonel has turned in the 500 brethren to help to consume the faster; so that there is great reason to suppose we shall soon be masters of Louisbourg, and the Admiral of the 4 French men of war blocked in the Harbour. We have taken papers of the utmost consequence, which let us into the secret schemes of the French, which were nothing less than a design of taking all our Plantations from us in America, and Hallifax in the first place, was destined for destruction.” West, writing on August 22 from Tunbridge Wells, mentions that Lady Cobham and Harriet had left them for Stoke, Mrs. Vesey was returning to Ireland, and the Bishop of London had just left, “but while he was here put into my hands some sheets of a third Volume of Discourses now printing, which, as I had the chief hand in prevailing upon him to publish, I received as a mark of his regard for me.” The bishop was then in very bad health. West was persuaded by the three doctors, Duncan, Burgess, and Morley, to stay on at Tunbridge Wells. [Page heading: READING] In a letter to Miss Anstey, who was with her friends, Lord and Lady Romney, at Brighthelmstone, Mrs. Montagu says that Miss Pitt had left her to join her brother, Mr. Pitt, and Lady Hester, at Sunninghill.[96] Mrs. Montagu accompanied her as far as Reading, “where we dined in the garden of the inn, from whence there is a fine gay prospect, and after dinner we walked to see the ruins of the old Abbey, which was most delightfully situated. The river winds about the richest meadows I ever saw; hills crowned with woods and adorn’d by some gentlemen’s houses bound the prospect, and make it the most soft and agreeable landscape imaginable.” [96] Sunning Hill, at that time rising in repute for its mineral wells. She and Mr. Montagu were contemplating visiting Mrs. Scott and Lady Bab Montagu at Bath Easton, “but I do not propose to leave poor Travile as long as she continues in this life; her end draws very near.” The invalid seems to have been most religious, and one learns that by her request Mrs. Montagu nightly read her the Service for the Sick.