" [Footnote: _Pepperrell to Shirley, 18 June_ (old
style,) 1745. _Ibid._, 4 July, 1745.] Thus this unique military
performance ended in complete and astonishing success.
According to English accounts, the French had lost about three hundred men
during the siege; but their real loss seems to have been not much above a
third of that number. On the side of the besiegers, the deaths from all
causes were only a hundred and thirty, about thirty of which were from
disease. The French used their muskets to good purpose; but their mortar
practice was bad, and close as was the advanced battery to their walls,
they often failed to hit it, while the ground on both sides of it looked
like a ploughed field, from the bursting of their shells. Their surrender
was largely determined by want of ammunition, as, according to one account,
the French had but thirty-seven barrels of gunpowder left, [Footnote:
_Habitant de Louisbourg._]--in which particular the besiegers fared
little better. [Footnote: Pepperrell more than once complains of a total
want of both powder and balls. Warren writes to him on May 29th: "It is
very lucky that we could spare you some powder; I am told you had not a
grain left.
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