They came in due time, but were of such a nature that Pepperrell refused to listen to them, and sent back Bonaventure, the officer who brought them, with counter-proposals. These were the terms which Duchambon had rejected on the seventh of May, with added conditions; as, among others, that no officer, soldier, or inhabitant of Louisbourg should bear arms against the King of England or any of his allies for the space of a year. Duchambon stipulated, as the condition 133 of his acceptance, that his troops should march out of the fortress with their arms and colors.[147] To this both the English commanders consented, Warren observing to Pepperrell “the uncertainty of our affairs, that depend so much on wind and weather, makes it necessary not to stickle at trifles.”[148] The articles were signed on both sides, and on the seventeenth the ships sailed peacefully into the harbor, while Pepperrell with a part of his ragged army entered the south gate of the town. “Never was a place more mal’d [mauled] with cannon and shells,” he writes to Shirley; “neither have I red in History of any troops behaving with greater courage. We gave them about nine thousand cannon-balls and six hundred bombs.”[149] Thus this unique military performance ended in complete and astonishing success. According to English accounts, the French had lost about three hundred men during the siege; but their real loss seems to have been not much above a third of that number. On the side of the besiegers, the deaths from all causes were only a hundred and thirty, about thirty of which were from disease. The French used their muskets to good purpose; but their mortar practice was bad, and close as was the advanced battery to their walls, they often failed to hit it, while the ground on both sides of it looked like a ploughed field, from the bursting of their 134 shells. Their surrender was largely determined by want of ammunition, as, according to one account, the French had but thirty-seven barrels of gunpowder left,[150]--in which particular the besiegers fared little better.[151] The New England men had been full of confidence in the result of the proposed assault, and a French writer says that the timely capitulation saved Louisbourg from a terrible catastrophe;[152] yet, ill-armed and disorderly as the besiegers were, it may be doubted whether the quiet ending of the siege was not as fortunate for them as for their foes. The discouragement of the French was increased by greatly exaggerated ideas of the force of the “Bastonnais.” The _Habitant de Louisbourg_ places the land-force alone at eight or nine thousand men, and Duchambon reports to the minister D’Argenson that he was attacked in all by thirteen thousand. His mortifying position was a sharp temptation to exaggerate; but his conduct can only be explained by a belief that the force of his enemy was far greater than it was in fact.