es extremely difficult, and it was not till
20th June that the first gun opened fire. Wolfe formed a battery on
Lighthouse Point, one side of the entrance to the harbour whilst the town
was on the other side, with a fortified island in between; and the
harbour held a French fleet which, at the time of the arrival of the
British, consisted of nine men-of-war. One escaped on the very day of the
landing, and was shortly afterwards followed by two more. One L'Echo, was
captured by Sir Charles Hardy, and was taken into the British Navy;
whilst the other, though chased for some distance, made good its escape
to L'Orient with the first news of the siege. Previously to the coming of
the British, two ships had been sunk in the harbour's mouth to render
entrance therein difficult; two more were added to these, and then a
fifth. One ship was blown up by a British shell, and setting fire to two
others that lay alongside her, they also were destroyed.

The fate of the other two is described in the Pembroke's log, kept by
Cook, as follows:

"In the night 50 boats man'd and arm'd row'd into the harbour under the
command of the Captains La Foure [Laforey] of the Hunter, and Balfour [of
the Etna] in order to cut away the 2 men-of-warr and tow them into the
North-East Harbour one of which they did viz.: the Ben Fison
[Bienfaisant] of 64 guns, the Prudon [Prudent] 74 guns being aground was
set on fire. At 11 A.M. the firing ceased on both sides."

The boats concerned in this attack, which Boscawen describes as "a very
brilliant affair, well carried out," were a barge and pinnace or cutter
from all the ships, except the Northumberland, which was too sickly,
commanded by a lieutenant, mate or midshipman, and Dr. Grahame in his
History of the United States of North America, says:

"The renowned Captain Cook, then serving as a petty officer on board of a
British ship-of-war, co-operated in this exploit, and wrote an account of
it to a friend in England. That he had distinguished himself may be
inferred from his promotion to the rank of lieutenant in the Royal Navy,
which took place immediately after."

This statement that he was in the affair may be true, but there is no
evidence on the point, and as he was a warrant and not petty officer, and
as his promotion did not take place for several years, Dr. Grahame's
story may well be doubted. It is believed that Cook did write to Mr.
Walker from Louisburg, but the letter was one of those so un