King George's War: When New England Colonists Captured A Powerful French Fort

King George's War (1744-1748) was the third great colonial conflict fought in North America between Great Britain and France, each side aided by their respective Native American allies. Like the previous two major colonial wars, it coincided with a larger European conflict – the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) – though it had its own origins unique to the political turmoil of Colonial America.

The war was rooted in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), in which France had been forced to cede its colony of Acadia (Nova Scotia) to Britain. Fearful of losing the rest of their Canadian colonies, the French constructed the mighty fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island to protect their North American interests and check British expansionism. By the 1740s, Louisbourg was not only the most formidable European-built fortress in North America but also a bustling commercial town.

In 1744, war broke out between Britain and France; as in the previous two wars, the North American theater was named for the British monarch, in this case King George II of Great Britain (reign 1727-1760). Britain's New England colonies used the war as an excuse to remove the threat of Louisbourg and launched a military expedition against it. The Siege of Louisbourg of 1745 was a great victory for the New Englanders and, though it marked the climax of the war, fighting also took place across New France, New York, and New England.

In 1748, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle ended the conflict, stipulating that Britain must return Louisbourg to France. The war helped unify the British colonists by giving them a common purpose and helped set the stage for the fourth, and final, great colonial war, the French and Indian War (1754-1763).

Background

Over 30 years had elapsed since the Treaty of Utrecht had put an end to Queen Anne's War (1702-1713), the second great struggle between the colonial empires of Britain and France for control of North America. That war – characterized by a cycle of murderous retaliatory raids in the northeast and failed military expeditions into Canada – had ended with the British seizing control of Acadia, a former French colony that the victors promptly renamed Nova Scotia.

The loss of Acadia put the other colonies of New France in a precarious position, as the British were now situated threateningly on their doorstep. So, in 1718, the French began construction of a fortress on Île-Royale (Cape Breton Island) to offset the British influence in the region. This fortress was built with the goal of defending the vital supply line up the St. Lawrence River to Quebec and protecting the profitable French fisheries off the coasts of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. By the early 1740s, this fortress had transformed into a mighty citadel that the French named Louisbourg in honor of their late monarch, King Louis XIV of France (reign 1643-1715).

By 1740, Louisbourg had become one of the largest and most formidable fortresses built by Europeans in North America, earning it the nickname ‘the Gibraltar of the West'. It included 2.5 miles (4 km) of stone walls, which in some places measured 30 feet (9 m) in height and 36 feet (11 m) across. Ditches and ramparts added further protection, as did six great bastions, situated at various points. The fortress had enough embrasures to mount 148 cannons – though historians estimate it had no more than 100 guns mounted at any given time – and enough barracks to house a garrison of 1,500 soldiers.

The fortress had been monstrously expensive and had cost an estimated 3.5 million livres to construct. This was four times the annual budget usually spent on all New France combined, causing King Louis XV of France (reign 1715-1774) to joke that, for that cost, he should be able to see the tops of the fortress's walls all the way from Versailles. This expense, however, could be expected to be partially recouped by Louisbourg itself since, in addition to being a mighty fort, it was also a bustling commercial town. Within its mighty walls, 4,300 French colonists lived and worked, exporting products made from fish. By the 1740s, Louisbourg had become France's second most important city in the New World after Quebec itself and had become the third largest port in all North America (after Boston and Philadelphia).

Louisbourg's very existence, therefore, was seen as a threat to British North America, particularly the nearby New England colonies. But despite these simmering tensions, the shattering of the 30-year peace would not take place along the Canadian border, but in the West Indies. Viewing the Spanish Empire as a power in decline, Britain had declared war in 1739 on the pretext that Spanish coast guards had mistreated and mutilated an English sea captain, Robert Jenkins, whose ear had been sliced off.

British Vice Admiral Edward Vernon then led a squadron of British warships into the West Indies, scoring a series of small victories against Spanish ports. The goal, aside from simply increasing British control over the lucrative West Indies, was to send a threatening message to Spain's ally, France, that Britain was still the master of the Americas. But the tables turned in 1741, when Vernon's massive invasion force met with destruction at the Battle of Cartagena de Indias; devastated by tropical diseases, Vernon's men died by the thousands and were forced to turn back.

The so-called War of Jenkins' Ear (1739-1748), rather than showcasing British power, simply proved to the French that British expansionism had to be stopped in order to protect their own imperial interests. The stage was set for yet another clash between the great colonial empires of Britain and France.

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