LOUISBURG— ORGANIZING A COUP 245

capture. Their group included also a 3,Ir. Kilby/ and per-
haps a ilr. Vardy who was sufficiently in their confidence
to place a private room at their disposal. '

William Vaughan was the first to propose the capture of
the fortress by surprise. Belknap, the historian of Xew
Hampshire, says of Vaughan that, " nothing being in his
view impracticable," he " even proposed going over the
walls in the winter on the drifts of snow." '

It is just to >.Ir. Vaughan to say that Governor Shirley
made use of his proposals and his energy in supporting them
to promote interest in and sentiment for the Louisburg ex-
pedition, and just to the governor to add that, since his
mind was not only bold but also sane, he did not contemplate
accomplishing a surprise by levying and equipping an army
in January, transporting it and all its accessories over wintry
seas, landing it upon the ice-bound shores of Cape Breton,
and marching it through or over snow drifts deep enough
to form an approach to the simimit of walls thirty-six
feet in height, all to be completed before the snows began
to melt in the spring.^ AA'ithout going to this length the

' Probably the Thomas Kilby later commended to the Duke of
Newcastle for his "indefatigable pains in assisting me with intelli-
gence, and every way forwarding and promoting the expedition in a
most necessary manner, whilst it was forming . . ." Shirley to New-
castle, Nov. 6, 174s, Sh. Cor., vol. i, p. 289.
'For the group and its activities, cf. Vaughan to Shirley, Jan. 14,
1745, Certificate by Shirley, Mar. 18, 1745, both in C. O. 5 753.
'Belknap, The History of Xcci' Hampshire . (Boston, 1813), vol.
