At Canseau they were all tied up three weeks, drilling and waiting for the ice to break, but they were thankful to get there at all.  The storms were severe, as may be gathered by this account of their efforts to get into Canseau, written by one of the men:  “A very Fierce Storm of Snow, som Rain and very Dangerous weather to be so nigh ye Shore as we was; but we escaped the Rocks and that was all.”

Pepperrill was thankful enough to see the Captain and his squadron,—­it was four ships now, as the schooner had picked up another frigate for him,—­but the two commanders were destined to rub each other very much the wrong way before they were through.  Pepperrill was a man who took risks only very solemnly and with deliberation, and who was blessed with endless patience.  Warren took risks with as much zest as he took rare food and rich wine, and in his swift, full and exciting life there had never been place or time for patience!  When the siege actually commenced, the poor Captain nearly went wild with the inaction.  He wanted to attack, to move, to do something.  Pepperrill’s calm judgment and slow tactics drove him distracted, and they were forever at odds in spite of a secret respect for each other.  In speaking of the contrast between them, Parkman, after describing Pepperrill’s careful management of the military end, says:  “Warren was no less earnest than he for the success of the enterprise....  But in habits and character the two men differed widely.  Warren was in the prime of life, and the ardour of youth still burned within him.  He was impatient at the slow movement of the siege.”

The Siege of Louisbourg started by Warren’s and Pepperrill’s demand that the fortress surrender, and the historic answer of Duchambon, the French commander, that they should have their answer from the cannon’s mouth.  It is not my purpose to tell of it in detail, for it lasted forty-seven days and strained the nerves of everyone to the breaking point.  But one or two things happened in the time which, to my mind, make our Captain seem a very human person.  There was, for instance, his amazing kindness, as unfailing to his captives as to his own men.  When the great French man-of-war Vigilant came to the aid of the beleaguered fortress, Warren joyously captured the monster, in full sight of Louisbourg and under the big guns there.  It was this incident, by the bye, for which he was knighted afterwards.  The French captain, Marquis de la Maisonfort, who was Warren’s prisoner, wrote in a letter to Duchambon:  “The Captain and officers of this squadron treat us, not as their prisoners, but as their good friends.”