The dike was much easier to scale when
thus approached on the landward side.
And now ensued a fierce hand-to-hand struggle. The spectators could
hardly contain their excitement as they saw their party, fighting
doggedly, forced back step by step to the edge of the water. Some,
slipping in the ooze of the retreating tide, fell and were carried
down by the current. These soon swam ashore--discreetly landing on
the further side of the river. The rest seeing the struggle hopeless,
now broke and fled with a celerity that the English could not hope
to rival. Along the flats, for perhaps a mile, a detachment of the
English pursued them till a bugle sounded their recall. Then Major
Lawrence, finding himself master of the field, directed his march
to that low hill where he had encamped the previous spring, and a
fatigue party was set to repair the dike.
On this hill the English proceeded to erect a fortified post, which
they called Fort Lawrence; and in an incredibly short time the red flag
was waving from its battlements, not three miles distant from Beausejour,
and an abiding provocation to the hot-headed soldiery of France. As for
Le Loutre, after his disastrous repulse, he yielded to the inevitable,
and gave up all thought of preventing the establishment of Fort Lawrence.
But he was not discouraged; he was merely changing his tactics.
The Missaguash being the dividing line between the two powers, he
caused his Acadian and Indian followers to enrage the English by petty
depredations, by violations of the frontier, by attacks and ambuscades.
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