Let me beg
your patience,--quoting, in my own justification, no less a historian
than James Grant Wilson:
"This Commodore Warren was one of those indefatigable and
nervous spirits who did such wonders at Louisbourg, and it
is with particular pride that his achievement should be
remembered in a history of New-York, as he was the only
prominent New-Yorker that contributed to Massachusetts'
greatest Colonial achievement."
The capture of Louisbourg may be remembered by some history readers as
a part of that English-French quarrel of 1745, commonly known as "King
George's War," and also as the undertaking described by so many
contemporaries as "Shirley's Mad Scheme." The scheme _was_ rather mad;
hence its appeal to Peter Warren, who was exceedingly keen about it
from the beginning.
Louisbourg was a strong French fortress on Cape Breton Island,
commanding the gulf of the St. Lawrence. Its value as a military
stronghold was great, and besides it had long been a fine base for
privateers, and was a very present source of peril to the New England
fishermen off the Banks.
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