The good news travelled fast. Within three weeks of the surrender the dispatches had reached England. Defeats, disasters, and exasperating fiascos had been common since the war began. But at last there was a genuine victory, British through and through, won by the Army and Navy together, and won over the greatest of all rivals, France. 'When we lost Minorca,' said the London Chronicle, just a month after the surrender, 'a general panic fell upon the nation; but now that Louisbourg is taken our streets echo with triumph and blaze with illuminations.' Loyal addresses poured in from every quarter. The king stood on the palace steps to receive the eleven captured colours; and then, attended by the whole court, went in state to the royal thanksgiving service held in St Paul's Cathedral. The thanks of parliament were voted to Amherst and Boscawen. Boscawen received them in person, being a member of the House of Commons. The speaker read the address, which was couched in the usual verbiage worked up by one of the select committees employed on such occasions. But Boscawen replied, as men of action should, with fewer words and much more force and point: 'Mr Speaker, Sir, I am happy to have been able to do my duty. I have no words to express my sense of the distinguished reward that has been conferred upon me by this House; nor can I thank you, Sir, enough for the polite and elegant manner in which you have been pleased to convey its resolution to me.' The American colonists in general rejoiced exceedingly that Louisbourg and all it meant had been exterminated. But, especially in New England, their joy was considerably tempered by the reflection that the final blow had been delivered without their aid, and that the British arms had met with a terrible reverse at Ticonderoga, where the American militia had outnumbered the old-country regulars by half as much again. Nevertheless Boston built a 'stately bonfire,' which made a 'lofty and prodigious blaze'; while Philadelphia, despite its parasitic Quakers, had a most elaborate display of fireworks representing England, Louisbourg, the siege, the capture, the triumph, and reflected glory generally. At the inland front, near Lake Champlain, where Abercromby now went by the opprobrious nickname of 'Mrs Nabbycrumby,' 'The General put out orders that the breastwork should be lined with troops, and to fire three rounds for joy, and give thanks to God in a Religious Way.' But the joy was more whole-hearted among the little, half-forgotten garrisons of Nova Scotia. At Annapolis no news arrived till well on in September, when a Boston sloop came sailing up the bay. Captain Knox, that most industrious of diarists, records the incident.