But, after all, it was not so much the defective works that really mattered as the defective garrison behind them. English-speaking civilians who have written about Louisbourg have sometimes taken partial account of the ordinary Frenchman's repugnance to oversea duty in time of peace and of the little worth of hireling foreigners in time of war. But they have always ignored that steady drip, drip, drip of deterioration which reduces the efficiency of every garrison condemned to service in remote and thoroughly uncongenial countries. Louisbourg was remote, weeks away from exchanges with Quebec, months from exchanges with any part of France or Switzerland. And what other foreign station could have been more thoroughly uncongenial, except, perhaps, a convict station in the tropics? Bad quarters were endurable in Paris or even in the provinces, where five minutes' walk would take one into something pleasanter. Bad fortifications would inspire less apprehension anywhere in France, where there was at least an army always ready to take the field. But cold, cramped quarters in foggy little Louisbourg, between the estranging sea and an uncouth land of rock, bog, sand, and scrubby vegetation, made all the world of difference in the soldier's eyes. Add to this his want of faith in works which he saw being scamped by rascally contractors, and we can begin to understand why the general attitude of town and garrison alike was one of 'Here to-day and gone to-morrow.' CHAPTER II THE SEA LINK LOST 1745 Rome would not rest till she had ruined Carthage. Britain would not rest till she had seen Dunkirk demolished. New England would not rest till she had taken Louisbourg. Louisbourg was unique in all America, and that was its undoing. It was the one sentinel beside the gateway to New France; therefore it ought to be taken before Quebec and Canada were attacked. It was the one corsair lying in perpetual wait beside the British lines of seaborne trade; therefore it must be taken before British shipping could be safe. It was the one French sea link between the Old World and the New; therefore its breaking was of supreme importance. It was the one real fortress ever heard of in America, and it was in absolutely alien hands; therefore, so ran New England logic, it was most offensive to all true Britons, New Englanders, and Puritans; to all rivals in smuggling, trade, and privateering; and to all right-thinking people generally.