wrote:  ’The General put out orders that the breastwork should be lined with troops, and to fire three rounds for joy, and give thanks to God in a religious way."[592] But nowhere did the tidings find a warmer welcome than in the small detached forts scattered through the solitudes of Nova Scotia, where the military exiles, restless from inaction, listened with greedy ears for every word from the great world whence they were banished.  So slow were their communications with it that the fall of Louisbourg was known in England before it had reached them, all.  Captain John Knox, then in garrison at Annapolis, tells how it was greeted there more than five weeks after the event.  It was the sixth of September.  A sloop from Boston was seen coming up the bay.  Soldiers and officers ran down to the wharf to ask for news.  “Every soul,” says Knox, “was impatient, yet shy of asking; at length, the vessel being come near enough to be spoken to, I called out, ‘What news from Louisbourg?’ To which the master simply replied, and with some gravity, ‘Nothing strange.’  This answer, which was so coldly delivered, threw us all into great consternation, and we looked at each other without being able to speak; some of us even turned away with an intent to return to the fort.  At length one of our soldiers, not yet satisfied, called out with some warmth:  ’Damn you, Pumpkin, isn’t Louisbourg taken yet?’ The poor New England man then answered:  ’Taken, yes, above a month ago, and I have been there since; but if you have never heard it before, I have got a good parcel of letters for you now.’  If our apprehensions were great at first, words are insufficient to express our transports at this speech, the latter part of which we hardly waited for; but instantly all hats flew off, and we made the neighboring woods resound with our cheers and huzzas for almost half an hour.  The master of the sloop was amazed beyond expression, and declared he thought we had heard of the success of our arms eastward before, and had sought to banter him."[593] At night there was a grand bonfire and universal festivity in the fort and village.

[Footnote 591:  These particulars are from the provincial newspapers.]

[Footnote 592:  Cleaveland, Journal.]

[Footnote 593:  Knox, Historical Journal, I. 158.]

Amherst proceeded to complete his conquest by the subjection of all the adjacent possessions of France.  Major Dalling was sent to occupy Port Espagnol, now Sydney.  Colonel Monckton was despatched to the Bay of Fundy and the River St. John with an order “to destroy the vermin who are settled there."[594] Lord Rollo, with the thirty-fifth regiment and two battalions of the sixtieth, received the submission of Isle St.-Jean, and tried to remove the inhabitants,—­with small success; for out of more than four thousand he could catch but seven hundred.[595]

[Footnote 594:  Orders of Amherst to Wolfe, 15 Aug. 1758; Ibid, to Monckton, 24 Aug. 1758; Report of Monckton, 12 Nov. 1758.]