d England. More than this, the backbone of both
armies were the French and British regulars, who also came from France
and England. Most of all, fleets were quite as important at Quebec and
Montreal as at Louisbourg, for ocean navigation went all those hundreds
of miles inland. Beyond these three great points, again, sea-power, of
a wholly inland kind, was all-important; for the French lived along
another line of waterways--from Montreal, across the Great Lakes, and
down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. You might as well expect
an army to march without legs as to carry on a war in America without
fleets of sea-going ships and flotillas of inland small craft, even
down to the birchbark canoe.

Pitt's plan for 1758 was to attack Canada on both flanks and work into
place for attacking her centre the following year. Louisbourg on the
coast of Cape Breton guarded her sea flank. Fort Duquesne (now
Pittsburg) at the forks of the Ohio guarded her land flank and her door
to the Golden West. Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain guarded her gateway
into the St. Lawrence from the south. Here the British attack, though
made with vastly superior numbers, was beaten back by the heroic and
skilful Montcalm. But Fort Duquesne, where Washington and Braddock had
been defeated, was taken by Forbes and re-named Pittshurg in honour of
the mighty Minister of War. Louisbourg likewise fell. So Canada was
beaten on both wings, though saved, for the moment, in the centre.

Louisbourg never had the slightest chance; for Boscawen's great fleet
cut it off from the sea so completely that no help the French could
spare could have forced its way in, even if it had been able to dodge
past the British off the coast of France. The British army, being well
supplied from the sea, not only cut Louisbourg off by land as well as
the fleet had cut it off by sea but was able to press the siege home
with such vigour that the French had to surrender after a brave defence
of no more than eight weeks. The hero of the British army at
Louisbourg was a young general of whom we shall soon hear more--Wolfe.

If we ever want to choose an Empire Year, then the one to choose,
beyond all shadow of a doubt, is 1759; and the hero of it, also beyond
all shadow of a doubt, is Pitt. Hardwicke, Pitt's chief civilian
adviser, was a truly magnificent statesman for war. Anson was a great
man at the head of the Navy. Ligonier was equally good at the head of
the Army,