"It lies at the bottom of a fine bay two leagues long, the mouth of
which is commanded by the town and citadel of Port Louis, or Blavet, a
place of great strength, and situated on a peninsula. The town of
L'Orient itself has no great strength, though surrounded by a new wall
of about 30 foot high, fortified with half moons, and guarded with some
cannon. They were in prodigious alarm at so unexpected an attack by
numbers which their fears magnified, and immediately offered to
capitulate, though upon terms which would have made their conquest of no
significancy to us. They made some advances a few hours after, to abate
of their demands; but the general positively refused to accept of the
town on any other condition than that of surrendering at discretion. He
had very good reason for this seeming rigour and haughtiness. It has
long been the misfortune of English armies to be very ill-served in
engineers; and surely there never was on any occasion such an assemblage
of ignorant blockheads as those which at this time attended us. They
positively affirmed it was easily in their power, by the assistance of a
mortar and two twelve pounders, in ten hours' time, either to lay the
town and East India magazine in ashes, or make a breach by which the
forces might easily enter. This being laid before the general and
admiral, they concluded themselves already masters of the
town,and[214:1] needed grant no terms. They were besides afraid that had
they taken the town upon terms, and redeemed it for a considerable sum
of money, the good people of England, who love mischief, would not be
satisfied, but would still entertain a suspicion that the success of his
majesty's arms had been secretly sold by his commanders. Besides,
nothing could be a greater blow to the French trade than the destruction
of this town; nor what[214:2] could imprint a stronger terror of the
English naval power, and more effectually reduce the French to a
necessity of guarding their coast with regular forces, which must
produce a great diversion from their ambitious projects on the
frontiers. But when the engineers came to execution, it was found they
could do nothing of what they had promised. Not one of their carkasses
or red hot balls took effect. As the town could not be invested either
by sea or land, they got a garrison of irregulars and regulars, which
was above double our number, and played 35 pieces of cannon upon us
while we could bring only four against them. Excessive rains fell, which
brought sickness amongst our men that had been stowed in transports
during the whole summer. We were ten miles from the fleet, the roads
entirely spoilt, every thing was drawn by men, the whole horses in the
country being driven away. So much fatigue and duty quite overcame our
little army. The fleet anchored in a very unsafe place in Quimperlay
Bay. For these and other reasons it was unanimously determined to raise
the siege on the 27th of September; and to this measure there was not