No reinforcements arrived after the first appearance of the British fleet. Marin, a well-known guerilla leader, had been sent down from Quebec, through the bush, with six or seven hundred whites and Indians, to join the two thousand men whom the French government had promised du Vivier for a second, and this time a general, attack on Acadia. But these other two thousand were never sent; and Marin, having failed to take Annapolis by the first week in June, was too late and too weak to help Louisbourg afterwards. The same ill luck pursued the French by sea. On April 30 the Renommee, a very smart frigate bringing out dispatches, was chased off by the Provincial cruisers; while all subsequent arrivals from the outside world were intercepted by Warren. The landing effected on May 12 was not managed according to Shirley's written instructions; nor was the siege. Shirley had been playing a little war game in his study, with all the inconvenient obstacles left out--the wind, the weather, the crashing surf in Gabarus Bay, the rocks and bogs of the surrounding country, the difficulties of entering a narrow-necked harbour under a combination of end-on and broadside fire, the terrible lee shore off the islands, reefs, and Lighthouse Point, the commonest vigilance of the most slovenly garrison, and even the offensive power of the guns on the walls of Louisbourg itself. Shirley's plan was that Pepperrell should arrive in the offing too late to be seen, land unobserved, and march on Louisbourg in four detachments while the garrison was wrapped in slumber. Two of these detachments were to march within striking distance and then 'halt and keep a profound silence.' The third was to march 'under cover of said hills' until it came opposite the Royal Battery, which it was to assault on a given signal; while the 'profound silence' men rushed the western gate. The fourth detachment was to race along the shore, scale a certain spot in the wall, 'and secure the windows of the Governor's Apartments.' All this was to be done by raw militia, on ground they had never reconnoitred, and in the dead of night. Needless to say, Pepperrell tried something quite different. At daybreak of the 12th the whole fleet stood into Gabarus Bay, a large open roadstead running west from the little Louisbourg peninsula. The Provincials eyed the fortress eagerly. It looked mean, squat, and shrunken in the dim grey light of early dawn. But it looked hard enough, for all that. Its alarm bells began to ring. Its signal cannon fired. And all the people who had been living outside hurried in behind the walls.