General Webb, on receiving intelligence of the capitulation, ordered five hundred men to meet the captured troops, and conduct them to his camp; but, to his surprise, instead of meeting the escort, he found the captives flying, through the woods singly, or in small groups, some distracted, and many bleeding with dreadful wounds, faint, and in a state of exhaustion. The whole number massacred and carried off, was probably not far from three hundred. The ill successes and losses of several campaigns now roused the people, both in the parent-country and in the provinces, to the consideration of more vigorous measures, under more able men. Accordingly, William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, the greatest statesman of modern ages, was brought forward at the present crisis, and infused his own ardent and decisive spirit into the national counsels. He sympathized with his trans-Atlantic brethren, and assured them, in a circular which he addressed to the governors of the provinces, that an effectual force should be sent against the French the next year, to operate both by sea and land. In connection with such a force, they were expected to raise their full quotas of troops, according to the number of the inhabitants. Animated by the favorable change in the parent-country, the government of Massachusetts voted seven thousand men, Connecticut five thousand, and New Hampshire three thousand, and the troops were ready for service in the early part of the year (1758). An armament of twelve thousand troops having been sent out from England, commanded by General Amherst, and the British forces already in America, added to the number of soldiers raised by the colonies, constituted an army far greater than had been before seen on this side of the ocean. The expeditions proposed for the year were three--the first against _Louisburg_, the second against _Ticonderoga_, and _Crown Point_, and the third against _Fort Du Quesne_. The feelings of resentment against the enemy were strong, and the colonists engaged heartily in the movements; for Canada was filled, so to speak, "with prisoners and scalps, private plunder, and public stores and provisions, which our people, as beasts of burden, had conveyed to them." The enterprise against Louisburg was conducted by the land and naval commanders, Amherst and Boscawen, with twenty ships of the line, and fourteen thousand men. As the British minister had in view the absolute extinction of the French power in America, it was of the highest importance to take Louisburg, as a key to the possession of the capital of Canada.