[Footnote 253:  Shirley to Robinson, 20 June, 1755.]

At two o’clock on the next morning a party of Acadians from Chipody roused Vergor with the news.  In great alarm, he sent a messenger to Louisbourg to beg for help, and ordered all the fighting men of the neighborhood to repair to the fort.  They counted in all between twelve and fifteen hundred;[254] but they had no appetite for war.  The force of the invaders daunted them; and the hundred and sixty regulars who formed the garrison of Beausejour were too few to revive their confidence.  Those of them who had crossed from the English side dreaded what might ensue should they be caught in arms; and, to prepare an excuse beforehand, they begged Vergor to threaten them with punishment if they disobeyed his order.  He willingly complied, promised to have them killed if they did not fight, and assured them at the same time that the English could never take the fort.[255] Three hundred of them thereupon joined the garrison, and the rest, hiding their families in the woods, prepared to wage guerilla war against the invaders.

[Footnote 254:  Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760. An English document, State of the English and French Forts in Nova Scotia, says 1,200 to 1,400.]

[Footnote 255:  Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.]

Monckton, with all his force, landed unopposed, and encamped at night on the fields around Fort Lawrence, whence he could contemplate Fort Beausejour at his ease.  The regulars of the English garrison joined the New England men; and then, on the morning of the fourth, they marched to the attack.  Their course lay along the south bank of the Missaguash to where it was crossed by a bridge called Pont-a-Buot.  This bridge had been destroyed; and on the farther bank there was a large blockhouse and a breastwork of timber defended by four hundred regulars, Acadians, and Indians.  They lay silent and unseen till the head of the column reached the opposite bank; then raised a yell and opened fire, causing some loss.  Three field-pieces were brought up, the defenders were driven out, and a bridge was laid under a spattering fusillade from behind bushes, which continued till the English had crossed the stream.  Without further opposition, they marched along the road to Beausejour, and, turning to the right, encamped among the woody hills half a league from the fort.  That night there was a grand illumination, for Vergor set fire to the church and all the houses outside the ramparts.[256]

[Footnote 256:  Winslow, Journal and Letter Book.  Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.  Letters from officers on the spot in Boston Evening Post and Boston News Letter.  Journal of Surgeon John Thomas.]