The preparations for such an attack altogether dispirited them. A cessation of hostilities was asked for, on the 15th, and obtained. On the 17th, after a siege of forty-nine days, Louisbourg and the Island of Cap Breton surrendered. Stores and prizes to the amount of nearly a million sterling fell into the hands of the conquerors. Nor was this the only advantage. Security was given to the colonies in their fisheries; Nova Scotia was preserved to England; and the trade and fisheries of France were nearly ruined. The successful General, a New Englander by birth, was created a baronet of Great Britain, in recognition of his important services to the State. Sir William Pepper(w)ell rose on the ruins of Louisbourg. On France the blow fell with great severity. The court, aroused to vengeance, sent the Duke D'Anville, a nobleman of great courage, in 1746, at the head of an armament of forty ships of war, fifty-six transports, with three thousand five hundred men, and forty thousand stand of arms for the use of the French and Indians in Canada, to recover possession of Cape Breton, and to attack the colonies. Four vessels of the line, forming the West India squadron, were to join the expedition, and Canada sent off 1,700 men with the same view. The greatest consternation possessed the English colonists, as part of this immense fleet neared the American coast. But there was, in reality, no cause for fear. The tempest had blasted the hopes of France. Only two or three of the ships, with a few transports, reached Chebucto Bay, in Nova Scotia. Many of the ships of this once formidable expedition were seriously damaged by storms, others were lost, and one was forced to return to Brest, on account of cholera among her crew. On arrival at Chebucto, where Halifax is now situated, the Admiral became so despondent that he poisoned himself, and the Vice Admiral, no more a Roman than his superior, ran himself through the body with his sword. So died both these gallant but unfortunate men, whose moral courage quailed before what they knew must be public opinion in France. Nor were the disasters of the Duke d'Anville's armament yet over. That part of the fleet which had arrived in America, sailed for the purpose of attacking Annapolis, only to be dispersed by a storm, in the Bay of Fundy, and to return to France crest-fallen. Another expedition was however, determined upon. Six men of war, of the largest class, six frigates, and four East Indiamen, with a convoy of thirty merchant vessels, set sail from France, with the Admiral de la Jonquiere appointed to succeed de Beauharnois as Governor of Canada. But a British fleet, under Admiral Anson and Rear Admiral Warren, dispatched to watch, and, if possible, intercept it, fell in with the French fleet on the 3rd of May, and before night all the battle ships had surrendered. The new Governor of Canada found himself a prisoner. The disagreeable intelligence of this second failure reached France on the