In 1758, as part of the Seven Years’ War, Britain assembled roughly 15,000 troops, about 10,000 of them regulars, under Jeffrey Amherst to retake Louisbourg. Edward Boscawen commanded the naval force of roughly 160 vessels: 120 transports and auxiliary ships, 23 men-of-war and 16 smaller craft. His second in command, Hardy, was blockading the harbour by mid-April, and the whole force lay at anchor in Gabarus Bay by 2 June.
Wolfe’s batteries at Lighthouse Point opened fire on 19 June and had silenced the Island Battery by the evening of 25 June. Wolfe then returned around the harbour and commanded the left, or northernmost, attack against the fortress.
Read the full account in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, and see the Blupete pages on the regiments and fleets at Louisbourg in 1758.
