While this is going on, the soldiers of the fourth division are to 88 march with all speed along the shore till they come to a certain part of the town wall, which they are to scale; then proceed “as fast as can be” to the citadel and “secure the windows of the governor’s apartments.” After this follow page after page of complicated details which must have stricken the general with stupefaction. The rocks, surf, fogs, and gales of that tempestuous coast are all left out of the account; and so, too, is the nature of the country, which consists of deep marshes, rocky hills, and hollows choked with evergreen thickets. Yet a series of complex and mutually dependent operations, involving long marches through this rugged and pathless region, was to be accomplished, in the darkness of one April night, by raw soldiers who knew nothing of the country. This rare specimen of amateur soldiering is redeemed in some measure by a postscript in which the governor sets free the hands of the general, thus: “Notwithstanding the instructions you have received from me, I must leave you to act, upon unforeseen emergencies, according to your best discretion.” On the twenty-fourth of March, the fleet, consisting of about ninety transports, escorted by the provincial cruisers, sailed from Nantasket Roads, followed by prayers and benedictions, and also by toasts drunk with cheers, in bumpers of rum punch.[88] [58] _Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg contenant une Relation exacte et circonstanciée de la Prise de l’Isle Royale par les Anglois._ [59] _Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg._ [60] _Mascarene to the Besiegers, 3 July, 1744._ Duquesnel had written to all the missionaries “d’engager les sauvages à faire quelque coup important sur le fort” (Annapolis). _Duquesnel à Beauharnois, 1 Juin, 1744._ [61] _Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg._ [62] Smollett says that the proposal came from Robert Auchmuty, judge of admiralty in Massachusetts. Hutchinson, Douglas, Belknap, and other well-informed writers ascribe the scheme to Vaughan, while Pepperrell says that it originated with Colonel John Bradstreet. In the Public Record Office there is a letter from Bradstreet, written in 1753, but without address, in which he declares that he not only planned the siege, but “was the Principal Person in conducting it,”--assertions which may pass for what they are worth, Bradstreet being much given to self-assertion. [63] Gibson, _Journal of the Siege of Louisbourg_. [64] _Lettre d’un Habitant de Louisbourg._ [65] _Report of Council, 12 January, 1745._ [66] Sparks, _Works of Franklin_, vii. 16. [67] Correspondence of Shirley and Wentworth, in _Belknap Papers. Provincial Papers of New Hampshire_, v. [68] _Governor Wanton to the Agent of Rhode Island, 20 December, 1745_, in _Colony Records of Rhode Island_, v.