This was cutting the enemy off once more from the road to Montreal; but Louisbourg, protected in 1757 by the fleet of Admiral Dubois de la Motte, and now abandoned to its own resources, in vain supported an unequal siege; the fortifications were in ruins, the garrison was insufficient notwithstanding its courage and the heroism of the governor, M.de Drucourt.

Seconded by his wife, who flitted about the ramparts, cheering and tending the wounded, he energetically opposed the landing of the English, and maintained himself for two months in an almost open place.

When he was at last obliged to surrender, on the 26th of July, Louisbourg was nothing but a heap of ruins; all the inhabitants of the islands of St.John and Cape Breton were transported by the victors to France.
Canada had by this time cost France dear; and she silently left it to its miserable fate.

In vain did the governor, the general, the commissariat demand incessantly re-enforcements, money, provisions; no help came from France.

"We keep on fighting, nevertheless," wrote Montcalm to the minister of war, "and we will bury ourselves, if necessary, under the ruins of the colony." Famine, the natural result of neglecting the land, went on increasing: the Canadians, hunters and soldiers as they were, had only cleared and cultivated their fields in the strict ratio of their daily wants; there was a lack of hands; every man was under arms; destitution prevailed everywhere; the inhabitants of Quebec were reduced to siege-rations; the troops complained and threatened to mutiny; the enemy had renewed their efforts: in the campaign of 1758, the journals of the Anglo-American colonies put their land forces at sixty thousand men.
"England has at the present moment more troops in motion on this continent than Canada contains inhabitants, including old men, women, and children," said a letter to Paris from M.Doreil, war commissioner.
Mr.Pitt, afterwards Lord Chatham, who had lately, come to the head of the English government, resolved to strike the last blow at the French power in America.