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 MtUtam Jp^pp^rrrll. I0 b? tttHrrtbFii in t1^t ^ni{ of 
 iFame for (Sr?at Amenrana. 
 
 That fortune aided him is true, but it was in the manner she 
 favors the pilot, who watching every changing wind, every 
 shifting current, makes all subservient to his purpose. 
 
 Napier. 
 
 Frederic H. Wilkins, 
 
 President of the 
 
 Pepperrell Association. 
 
 Everett P. Wheeler ) 
 
 John F. Hill v Committee. 
 
 George B. Leighton ) 
 
 January, 19 lo. 
 

 26 OCT 1 910 
 
To THE Chancellor 
 
 OF THE University of the 
 
 City of New York. 
 
 The Pepperrell Association, a Society 
 incorporated under the laws of the state of 
 Maine, and composed of descendants of 
 Colonel William Pepperrell, the elder, 
 respectfully nominates the name of Sir 
 William Pepperrell to be inscribed in 
 the Hall of Fame for great Americans. 
 
 The Association respectfully submits 
 in support of this nomination, the accom- 
 panying memorial. 
 
 The Pepperrell Association, 
 
 by Frederick H. Wilkins, 
 
 President. 
 
 Everett P. Wheeler, 
 
 21 State Street, New York City. 
 
 John F. Hill, 
 
 Augusta, Maine. 
 
 George R. Leighton. 
 
 Monadnock, N. H. 
 
 Committee. 
 
 March 10, 1910. 
 
/nbcmorial 
 
 In Support of the Nomination of the Name of 
 Sir William Pepperrell, to be Inscribed in the Hall 
 OF Fame for Great Americans. 
 
 The names that have up to this time been inscribed in the 
 Hall of Fame are, with one exception — that of Jonathan 
 Edwards — men who achieved their fame after the Declara- 
 tion of Independence. It is natural that the lustre of their 
 great names should have obscured for a time that of those 
 under whose guidance and leadership the thirteen colonies 
 attained that strength and mutual understanding, without 
 which the revolution would have been a failure, and Ameri- 
 can independence impossible. 
 
 But it should never be forgotten that the Constitution of 
 the. United States was an evolution. In any just view of 
 American history the men who took part in this evolution 
 and made its success possible, should not be forgotten. Wash- 
 ington, Franklin, Jefferson and Adams are rightly inscribed 
 in the Hall of Fame. Their achievements were the legiti- 
 mate outgrowth and development of the deeds of the great 
 colonials. 
 
 We respectfully submit that of these no one is better en- 
 titled to be inscribed in the Hall of Fame than Sir William 
 Pepperrell. 
 
 He was the most enterprising and successful colonial 
 merchant and one of the most distinguished colonial states- 
 men. 
 
 He was the most skilful and successful colonial general. 
 Under his leadership regiments from the different colonies 
 learned to co-operate against regular troops entrenched 
 
behind strong fortifications. The veterans of Louisburg 
 were the backbone of the New England forces at the be- 
 ginning of the revolution. 
 
 He received the highest honor in the gift of his native 
 colony — President of the Council. 
 
 He received the highest honors conferred before the rev- 
 olution by the British Government upon a colonist. He was 
 made a baronet, and a colonel in the British regular army 
 and was promoted by successive grades to the rank of 
 lieutenant general in that army. 
 
 He was a typical American; typical of the time 
 when the exigencies of life were such that a man 
 of talent could not limit himself or his intelligence to 
 one particular occupation, but when the necessities of the 
 situation in which our fathers were placed, compelled him 
 to play many parts, which in a later and more complex 
 civilization would be filled by different individuals. 
 
 William Pepperrell commenced life as a merchant, and 
 a merchant he continued for thirty years. Yet during that 
 time he became Chief Justice of the Court of Common 
 Pleas in Maine. He was President of His Majesty's Coun- 
 cil for the Colony of Massachusetts. As general of the 
 colonial forces, he conducted the most successful and bril- 
 liant of the campaigns in which the colonists were unaided 
 by troops from the mother country. 
 
 What is commonly known as an education — that is to 
 say scholastic training — was vouchsafed to few colonials. 
 William Pepperrell. like most of the young men of his 
 time, had little of this beside reading, writing and arith- 
 metic. His father, however, employed an instructor who 
 taught him surveying and navigation — the measuring of the 
 land, and the tracing of a pathway over the trackless ocean 
 — two arts which to a colonist and navigator were essen- 
 tial. His frame was hardened by constant activity in the 
 open air, by contests with the savages, by explorations in 
 the woods of Maine, by voyages on the sea. He met in the 
 
course of these adventures all sorts and conditions of men, 
 from the Governor in the old mansion at Portsmouth, which 
 Longfellow has immortalized, to the Indian in the forest. 
 His mind and heart were enlarged by the spirit of progress 
 which filled the breast of every active colonist, and the 
 capacity to command, which distinguished him throughout 
 his life, showed itself at an early age. 
 
 As partner in his father's commercial enterprises he ex- 
 tended the sphere of business of the firm. Their ware- 
 houses were filled with fish from the Banks of Newfound- 
 land, with sugar and molasses from the West Indies, with 
 hemp and iron, linen and silk, from Great Britain, with 
 naval stores from the Carolinas. The firm owned more 
 than a hundred vessels and their name and ensign were to 
 be seen in London and Bristol, in the Havannah, and at 
 Charleston, in Wilmington and Boston. The fortune in- 
 creased rapidly, and part of it was invested in immense 
 tracts of land in Maine, where the great pine trees were 
 cut and floated down the rivers, and built into ships which 
 added in their turn to the wealth and prosperity of the firm 
 of William Pepperrell and Son. Soon after he was twenty- 
 four he established a branch of the house in Boston ; in 
 1726 he was chosen representative from Kittery to the 
 Massachusetts Legislature, and in the following year was 
 appointed by Governor Belcher a member of the Massa- 
 chusetts council. (It will be remembered that Maine was 
 then a part of Massachusetts.) When hardly twenty-one 
 years of age he was commissioned as a captain of a com- 
 pany of cavalry, and soon after became major and lieu- 
 tenant-colonel. In the same year in which he was elected 
 representative to the Legislature, he was commissioned 
 colonel and placed in command of all the Maine militia. 
 
 In 1730 he was appointed by the Governor Chief Justice 
 of the Court of Common Pleas for Maine, and this office 
 he continued to hold until his death. Immediately upon 
 his appointment he sent to London for a law library. The 
 
records of his court, and the testimony of all his contempo- 
 raries, show that, though not bred a lawyer, he administered 
 justice with firm and even hand to the entire satisfaction 
 of litigants, and of the whole community. 
 
 In 1734 his father died, and he succeeded to the business 
 of the firm, and to the greater part of the large tracts of 
 land in Maine, of which his father had become the owner. 
 This accession to his fortune did not diminish his activity. 
 He became and continued President of the Council for the 
 Colony of Massachusetts. For both public and private 
 reasons he resided with his family during a large part of 
 every year in Boston, where his two children, Elizabeth 
 and Andrew, were educated. 
 
 Meanwhile, the politics and wars of Europe were a source 
 of constant interest and apprehension to the Colonists. Eng- 
 land had been at war with Spain, and the naval battles 
 which the two nations, then more equally matched, fought 
 for the possession of the West Indies, were a source of as 
 much interest in Boston and New York, as they were in 
 London and Bristol. The English were getting the better 
 of the conflict, and the apprehension became general that 
 Spain would seek and secure an alliance with France, and 
 that the result would be a war between the allied powers 
 and England, which would involve the colonies. 
 
 In 1743, Governor Shirley received dispatches from Eng- 
 land, that in all probability war would soon be declared. 
 In October of that year he transmitted the intelligence to 
 Colonel Pepperrell, with instructions to put the frontier im- 
 mediately in a state of preparation for war. A copy of 
 this, Pepperrell at once transmitted to his officers, adding: 
 'T hope that He who gave us our breath will give us the 
 courage and prudence to behave ourselves like true-born 
 Englishmen." 
 
 On the 15th of March, 1744, war was declared by the 
 French, and hostilities at once began in Nova Scotia. The 
 islands of Cape Breton and Newfoundland are on opposite 
 
sides of the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The 
 French, in order to guard this entrance and protect their 
 Canadian possessions, had erected on the island of Cape 
 Breton, the great citadel of Louisburg, the strongest fortress 
 in the new world. The garrison of this fortress was a con- 
 stant menace to the colonists, and the fort itself was a depot 
 of warlike supplies for all the French armies in Canada. 
 The harbor of Louisburg was capacious, and afforded a 
 safe anchorage for the French men-of-war, a place of refuge 
 for their merchantmen and fishing vessels, and a convenient 
 rendezvous for their privateers. Thence they sallied forth 
 to ravage colonial commerce. There they sought refuge 
 with their prizes.* The entrance to this harbor is 
 only twelve hundred feet wide, and in the center of 
 this channel is an island very similar to that on which Fort 
 Sumter is built at the entrance to Charleston harbor. 
 
 On this island the French had erected a fort and 
 another was placed within range, on the northwestern side 
 of the harbor; the three fortifications being thus arranged 
 so as to cover each other. The ramparts were of stone, from 
 thirty to thirty-six feet high, with a ditch eighty feet wide, 
 and extended over a circuit of nearly two miles. The works 
 had been building for nearly twenty-five years, and were 
 believed to be impregnable by any force that the British 
 could bring against them. 
 
 The French had been preparing for war, and had secured 
 the neutrality and possibly the alliance of many of the 
 Penobscot Indians, who up to that time had been believed to 
 be friendly to the English. Colonel Pepperrell went to 
 them at the head of a delegation, asking for their support in 
 the war, but the application was refused, the Sagamores 
 stating that they would not fight against their brethren of 
 St. John's and New Brunswick. No one could tell how 
 
 *See Commemoration sermon, preached by Dr. Thomas Prince, in 
 Old South Church, Boston, July 18, 1745. p. 19. Mass. Hist. Soc. 
 Collection Pamphlets, Series VII. 
 
far this defection had extended, and the conviction became 
 general in New England that, as long as this formidable 
 fortress remained so near her borders, the colonists could 
 never hope for security. The Legislatures of the New Eng- 
 land colonies in winter session discussed plans for action, and 
 sent letters to the provinces of New York, New Jersey and 
 Pennsylvania. The Legislature of New York, upon Gov- 
 ernor Clinton's recommendation, appropriated three thou- 
 sand pounds for the expenses of the expedition, and the 
 Governor at his own expense sent cannon. Pennsylvania 
 sent provisions. But these colonies furnished no troops to 
 the expedition which followed. The New England colonies 
 were not, however, daunted, and resolved to summon all 
 their forces for the attack. The immense armies that were 
 raised in this country during the civil war have so ac- 
 customed us to enormous hosts, that those which 
 were engaged in any of our previous wars seem 
 to us insignificant. The whole number of troops 
 engaged in the Louisburg expedition would not have 
 furnished a division to the army of the Potomac. But 
 in considering the importance of the undertaking, we should 
 compare these numbers with those of our earlier 
 wars. Massachusetts raised for the expedition, 3,250; 
 Rhode Island, 300; New Hampshire, 300, and Con- 
 necticut, 500; an army larger than that with which Gen- 
 eral Taylor undertook the conquest of Mexico, and nearly 
 equal to that with which he won the battle of Buena Vista. 
 Yet that army was raised by the whole United States at a 
 time when our population was nearly ten times the population 
 of the colonies at the Revolution, and more than twenty 
 times that of New England in 1745. 
 
 Not only did the colonists send an army, but they con- 
 tributed a portion of the navy that sailed for Louisburg; 
 fourteen vessels with 204 guns. 
 
 When the New England Legislatures had provided for 
 raising troops, the question arose, who should command 
 
them. A long period of peace had left the colonists without 
 any officers of experience in large military manoeuvres. 
 But amongst those who had commanded in the border wars 
 with the Indians, there was none who possessed the con- 
 fidence of the people as did William Pepperrell, and he was 
 unanimously selected for the position. He was reluctant to 
 accept it, and, while the matter was under consideration, 
 consulted his guest, the famous George Whitefield, who was 
 then on one of his missionary expeditions through New 
 England. Whitefield's reply was frank. He said : "I do 
 not think the scheme very promising; if you take the ap- 
 pointment the eyes of all will be upon you; if you do not 
 succeed, the widows and orphans of the slain will reproach 
 you. n you should succeed, many will regard you with 
 envy, and endeavor to eclipse your glory. You ought, there- 
 fore, if you go at all, to go with a single eye, and you will 
 find your strength proportioned to your necessity." 
 
 Governor Shirley assured Pepperrell that there was no 
 one else in New England, under whose leadership the colo- 
 nists could be sure of raising the troops necessary for the 
 purpose. He accepted in the spirit Whitefield had urged. 
 He then asked the great religious leader to give him a motto 
 for the colonial flag. The motto given was characteristic of 
 the enterprise. It was "Nil Desperandum, Christo Duce." 
 The religious spirit which had brought so many of the colo- 
 nists to New England had lost none of its enthusiasm. 
 
 The Massachusetts troops sailed on the 24th of March, 
 1745, for Canso Bay, which was the place agreed upon for 
 a rendezvous. Meanwhile Governor Shirley was in corre- 
 spondence with Commodore Peter Warren, who commanded 
 the West India fleet. He at first declined to take part in 
 the expedition. The refusal was received the very day 
 before Pepperrell sailed, but he was nothing daunted and 
 determined to make the attempt with the colonial forces 
 alone. About three weeks, however, after the arrival at 
 Canso, and while the men were at work making their own 
 

 ■ cartridges (a fact which illustrates one of the differences 
 between the warfare of those days and that of modern 
 times), three large men-of-war loomed up on the horizon. 
 These were soon discovered to be under the command of 
 Commodore Warren. These ships and those that followed 
 were a great accession to the colonial forces, and aided 
 essentially in the blockade which contributed largely to the 
 reduction of the city. The troops sailed from Canso on the 
 29th of April, and arrived the next morning at Gabarus Bay. 
 The precautions which Pepperrell had directed, to conceal 
 the proximity of the troops from the garrison at Louisburg, 
 had been entirely successful, and the first intelligence they 
 h&d of the expedition was the arrival of the English and 
 provincial fleet and the boats in which the soldiers rowed 
 ashore. A detachment from the garrison was at once sent 
 out to meet them, and on the rocky coast of the island, the 
 first blood was shed in the campaign. The provincials 
 effected a landing, and drove the garrison back to their 
 walls. A detachment of the invading army was at once dis- 
 patched to reconnoiter, and captured the royal battery on 
 the northwestern side of the harbor. It had been from 
 the first, part of Pepperrell's'plan to take this battery. He 
 had ascertained the calibre of the guns and had balls made 
 in Boston to fit them. The captured guns were speedily 
 turned against the citadel. 
 
 Meanwhile the remainder of the army landed, and the 
 troops encamped in sight of the ramparts. These fortifica- 
 tions, to the provincials, unused to such solid walls, seemed 
 formidable indeed. Major Pomroy, of Northampton, who 
 had been detailed to dig out the touchholes of the cannon 
 that the French had spiked, and who afterwards com- 
 manded with distinction at Lake George and Bunker Hill 
 wrote to his wife: "Louisburg is an exceedingly strong 
 place and seems impregnable. It looks as if our campaign 
 would last long, but I am willing to stay till God's time 
 comes to deliver the city into our hands." 
 
General Pepperrell at once undertook to concert with 
 Commodore Warren a plan of campaign. But the Com- 
 modore always seems to have found some good reason for 
 not sending his marines to assist in an attack on the Island 
 battery at the entrance to the harbor, which Pepperrell 
 desired to storm, and all the combinations which the Ameri- 
 can general endeavored to effect for this purpose came to 
 naught. The British ships guarded the entrance to the 
 harbor, and captured a number of vessels, some of which 
 were laden with supplies for the garrison, and they fur- 
 nished some gunners and powder for the siege guns. This 
 was their contribution to the success of the enterprise. 
 
 Colonel Gridley was assigned by Pepperrell to the erection 
 of parallels and the mounting of siege guns. Thirty years 
 afterwards Gridley marked out the line of the famous in- 
 trenchmert of Bunker Hill. "When Gage was erecting 
 breastworks across Boston Neck, the provincial troops 
 sneeringly remarked that his mud walls were nothing com- 
 pared with the stone walls of old Louisburg." 
 
 The first parallel was begun about 4,600 feet from the 
 northwest bastion. The provincials soon erected another 
 at about half the distance from the ramparts, and 
 brought into action a mortar battery which commenced a 
 brisk bombardment. A constant cannonade was kept up, the 
 circle of fire gradually drew closer to the city, and on the 
 15th of May, a battery was finished a thousand feet from 
 the west gate. The following day a discovery was made. 
 Thirty cannon suitable for siege guns were found under 
 water near the light-house at the entrance to the harbor, and 
 a party of provincials was sent to pull them out. The fol- 
 lowing night a sortie was made from the garrison with the 
 purpose of driving away this detachment, but the attack was 
 repulsed with slight loss. On the i8th a breach was ef- 
 fected in the west gate. By this time the troops had ap- 
 proached so near that conversation began to be carried on 
 from the ramparts to the trenches, accompanied as the 
 
letters tell, with hospitable invitations to breakfast, which, 
 however, for the time were refused. 
 
 On the 20th, Warren announced the capture of the "Vigi- 
 lant," a French vessel carrying sixty- four guns, and having 
 on board reinforcements and military stores for the garri- 
 son. Meanwhile the breach which had been made in the 
 wall was gradually enlarging, and the subject of an assault 
 began to be discussed between Warren and Pepperrell. The 
 fleet meanwhile was increased by the arrival of ships from 
 England and the West Indies. The French constructed in 
 the night a battery in the breach, but this was soon silenced 
 by the provincial artillery. Signals were concerted, scaling 
 ladders carried to the front, storming parties were told off, 
 and all was ready for an assault when, on the 15th of June, 
 Governor Duchambon sent out a flag of truce. The terms 
 of capitulation were agreed upon on the i6th and 17th. The 
 French were to march out with the honors of war and lay 
 down their arms, and it was stipulated that they should "in 
 consideration of their gallant defence," be sent back to 
 France. On the 17th Pepperrell marched in at the head of 
 his army, and the French garrison numbering 1.960, sur- 
 rendered. "Thus," says Bancroft, "did the strongest for- 
 tress of North America capitulate to an army of undisci- 
 plined New England mechanics and farmers and fishermen. 
 It was the greatest success achieved by England during the 
 war. * 
 
 Its importance was realized in other colonies before the 
 expedition sailed. James Alexander writes to Cadwallader 
 Golden, New York, March 10, 1745: 
 
 "The Boston Expedition against Gape Breton is a bold 
 undertaking. If it succeed it will be the most glorious thing 
 that has been done this war, and the most useful if the 
 conquest can be kept, for it's the only place of Rendezvous 
 that the French have to annoy the northern plantations with 
 from the sea." 
 
 ♦History of the United States— Ed. 1850, Vol. Ill, p. 463. 
 
 10 
 
Some historians have been disposed to attribute to good 
 fortune, and not to skill, this remarkable victory. To them 
 we may reply in the language of Napier* at the end of his 
 account of the third siege of Badajos, This "has so often 
 been adduced in evidence, that not skill, but fortune, plumed 
 his (Wellington's) ambitious wing; a proceeding indeed 
 most consonant to the nature of man, for it is hard to avow 
 inferiority by attributing an action so stupendous to superior 
 genius alone." 
 
 The news of the capture of Louisburg was received on 
 both sides of the Atlantic with the utmost joy, not un- 
 mingled with surprise. The fortress was so important, the 
 French had been so long engaged in its construction, the 
 means employed for its reduction appeared to European 
 generals so insignificant, that the success almost transcended 
 belief. On this side of the Atlantic, Boston and Salem, New 
 York and Philadelphia blazed with bonfires and illumina- 
 tions, and resounded with the ringing of bells and the firing 
 of cannon. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Chauncy wrote to Pepperrell from Boston 
 on the fourth of July, a day which then had not the signifi- 
 cance which with us it has since obtained : 
 
 'T heartily congratulate you upon the news which we 
 received yesterday about break of day, of the reduction of 
 Cape Breton. The people of Boston before sunrise were 
 as thick about the streets as on an election day, and a 
 pleasing joy visibly set on the countenance of every one 
 met with. 
 
 "As God has made you an instrument of so much service 
 to your country, at the hazard of your life, and the expense 
 of great labor and fatigue, your name is deservedly and 
 universally spoken of with respect, and I doubt not will 
 be handed down with honor to the latest posterity. 
 
 "We had last night the finest illumination I ever beheld 
 with my eyes. I believe there was not a house in town, 
 in no by-lane or alley, but joy might be seen through its 
 windows. The night also was made joyful by bonfires, fire- 
 
 *History of the Peninsular War. Am. Ed. 1842, Vol. Ill, p. 238. 
 
works, and all other external tokens of rejoicing; but I 
 hope we shall in a better manner still commemorate the 
 goodness of God in this remarkable victory obtained against 
 our enemies. I hear next Thursday is set apart for a day 
 of general thanksgiving through the province, and I be- 
 lieve there is not a man in the country but will heartily join 
 the thanksgiving to God for his appearance on our behalf." 
 
 The contemporary accounts are too graphic not to be 
 quoted : 
 
 "Now the churl and the niggard became generous, and 
 even the poor forgot their poverty ; and in the evening the 
 whole town (Boston) appeared, as it were, in a blaze, almost 
 every house being finely illuminated." 
 
 "At night the whole city (New York) was splendidly il- 
 luminated, and the greatest demonstration of joy appeared 
 in every man's countenance upon hearing the good news." ** 
 
 But the public rejoicings were not confined to the colonies. 
 Tower Hill, Cheapside, and the Strand, were illuminated 
 as well as Beacon Street and Broadway. The messenger 
 who brought to London the news of the surrender received 
 a present of five hundred guineas. Pepperrell was made 
 a baronet, and was commissioned colonel in the British 
 regular army. He was the only colonist who before the 
 Revolution received either distinction. 
 
 Pepperrell remained in command at Louisburg until 1746, 
 and here the Legislature of Massachusetts sent him an 
 
 **New York Weekly Post Boy, July 15, 1745. 
 
 In the same paper, a week later, the local poet thus gave 
 expression to the general jubilation: 
 
 ON THE TAKING OF CAPE BRETON. 
 
 When glorious Anne Britannia's sceptre swayed, 
 And Lewis strove all Europe to invade, 
 Great Marlborough then, in Blenheim's hostile fields, 
 With Britain's sons, o'erthrew the Gallic shields. 
 
 The Western world and Pepperrell now may claim 
 As equal honor and as lasting fame; 
 And Warren's merit will in story last, 
 'Till future ages have forgot the past. 
 
address, congratulating him and his officers and soldiers, and 
 tendering the grateful acknowledgments of the colony for 
 their important services. 
 
 In 1746, Sir William returned to Boston, and was re- 
 elected President of the Council, which was then in session. 
 He and Sir Peter Warren received a public reception from 
 the Legislature, which was also in session, and on the 
 fifth of July, Sir William left the city for his country seat 
 at Kittery. His journey thither was like a royal progress. 
 He was received at the different towns at which he stopped, 
 by companies of mounted troops, and was welcomed every- 
 where with military salutes, illuminations and festivities. 
 
 In 1749 he visited England and was received with marked 
 distinction. After his return, and in 1753, he conducted 
 important negotiations with the Indians of Maine. In 1754 
 he received orders to raise a regiment of foot for the royal 
 service, and while in New York on military business in 
 1755, received a commission as major-general in the British 
 regular army. Jealousy on the part of Governor Shirley 
 kept him from service in the field at that time, but he exerted 
 himself actively to raise troops for the war then going on 
 with the French, and he was entrusted with the command of 
 the forces which guarded the frontiers of Maine and New 
 Hampshire. Just as the war began to be successful, on 
 the sixth of July, 1759, he died. 
 
 In closing this memorial we respectfully submit that 
 colonials are justly entitled to larger representation in the 
 Hall of Fame. It was said of them that "God sifted a 
 whole nation to plant seed in the American Wilderness." 
 
 We owe to them : 
 
 1. The conversion of a wilderness into fruitful fields, 
 the establishment of manufactures, the development of 
 commerce. 
 
 2. The successful struggle with the French and Indians 
 who from Canada to Louisiana, sought by a chain of forts 
 to confine the English colonists to the Atlantic seacoast. 
 
 13 
 
In the course of this conflict, the colonists became a force 
 in European politics. They took part in the war of Aus- 
 trian Succession and the Seven Years' War, the great 
 struggle which England, assisted by the armies of Frederick 
 the Great, waged with France and Austria for supremacy 
 in Europe, in America and India. 
 
 3. The colonists achieved a certain amount of refine- 
 ment and cultivation in their commercial centers, and 
 fostered both art and learning. 
 
 Of the religious and theological side of this learning, 
 Jonathan Edwards is a representative in the Hall of Fame. 
 William Pepperrell, too, was deeply religious, as his writ- 
 ings clearly show. He was free from narrowness and 
 bigotry and chose for the name of the Church in Kittery 
 which his father and he aided to establish — not any denom- 
 inational name but — The Church of Christ. He was a 
 warm friend of Edwards, who, in 175 1, was missionary to 
 the Stockbridge Indians, and procured £700 to aid him in 
 that work. 
 
 Pepperrell was also conspicuous in all the other fields 
 in which the colonies manifested their greatness. 
 
 First, as a colonizer. His estates were larger than those 
 of any other American, except some of the royal patentees 
 such as William Penn. He erected large lumber mills at 
 Saco and Scarboro, whence he brought the timber used in 
 his shipyards at Kittery. No other colonist had such large 
 commercial interests. This wealth and power were pro- 
 duced by the energy of Pepperrell and Son, the father 
 having come to this country without a shilling. William 
 Pepperrell could ride from his home in Kittery to Saco, 
 without going ofif his own estates. No American showed 
 more power and energy in subduing the wilderness and 
 bringing commerce to our shores. He advanced for the 
 Louisburg Expedition £5,000, a princely gift for those days, 
 £2,000 more than the colony of New York supplied. Four 
 hundred men enlisted from his own town of Kittery. 
 
 14 
 
Second. Kittery was a border town, and "Pepperrell's 
 Fort" in that town was a military outpost. Sir William, 
 as we have seen, was from his earliest years commander of 
 the militia of Maine, As Stevens says of him — "The 
 youth smelled powder before he reached his teens." Not 
 only by arms, but also by wise negotiations, he protected 
 the colonists from Indian incursions. 
 
 He was the most conspicuous figure in America 
 during the war of the Austrian Succession and the Seven 
 Years' War, and thus achieved a greater international rep- 
 utation than any American prior to the Revolution. His 
 achievements at Louisburg have been fully referred to. At 
 the beginning of the Seven Years' War, he was appointed 
 by the Crown a major-general and was efficient and suc- 
 cessful in the work entrusted to him by the Newcastle 
 ministry. But the campaign generally was unfortunate. 
 When Pitt came into power he sent over two efficient gen- 
 erals, Amherst and Wolfe, and gave Pepperrell the chief 
 command in the colonies, appointing him a lieutenant general 
 in the Royal Army. H^ad it not been for sickness he would 
 have taken the field, and actively shared the glories of 
 Quebec and the capture of Fort Duquesne, The plan of 
 the campaign which led to the overthrow of the French sway 
 in Canada, and prepared the way for the American revolu- 
 tion, was fought according to the plans laid down by Pep- 
 perrell. 
 
 Third. No house in the colonies was more the center of 
 culture than his. He was the patron of men of letters, and 
 the benefactor of American colleges. 
 
 We would gladly present him to you as he appeared in 
 the old State House, in the Hancock mansion in Boston, or 
 in his own home at Kittery ; as Copley and Smybert have 
 depicted him on canvas ; the well-knit frame, clad in the 
 embroidered waistcoat and scarlet coat of the period, the 
 regular features, oval face, the kindly but resolute eye, the 
 manly carriage. 
 
 IS 
 
A fisherman's son, he raised himself to honor and wealth. 
 Although not bred a lawyer, he presided with ability as 
 Chief Justice. Although not trained a soldier, he com- 
 manded the armies of the colonies with courage, fortitude, 
 foresight and success. No record has ever leaped to light 
 that casts a shadow upon his memory. Just and upright in 
 all his own dealings, he knew how to be generous and 
 merciful to others ; fearless and resolute himself, he knew 
 how to encourage the wavering, and stimulate the doubting. 
 He was politic without insincerity, liberal and hospitable 
 without extravagance. 
 
 The one controlling purpose of his life was duty. 
 He became in youth a member of the Congrega- 
 tional Church, and continued a devout and consistent 
 adherent to its principles. But he was free from that 
 narrowness and bigotry that disfigure the character of some 
 of the New England colonial leaders. At home and abroad, 
 in the counting-house and the Legislature, on the Bench or 
 in command of the provincial army, he embodied in action 
 the religious conviction that became in youth an essential 
 part — indeed, the foundation of his whole character. Per- 
 haps the best evidence of this is that prosperity never made 
 him arrogant, or marred the simplicity and straightforward- 
 ness of the man. And thus, to the day of his death, he en- 
 joyed alike the confidence of the Indians in the Maine for- 
 ests, the British Governors sent to rule the provinces, the 
 merchants of Boston and London, the aristocracy of Beacon 
 Street, and his neighbors at Kittery. 
 
 i6 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 Life of Sir William Pepperrell — Usher Parsons. 
 
 The Louisburg Memorial — Society of Colonial Wars 1896. 
 
 Dictionary of National Biography — Leslie Stephen, Vol. 
 I4> P- 352 ; Title — William Pepperrel. 
 
 Appleton's Encyclopaedia of American Biography — Vol. 
 4, p. 721 ; Title — William Pepperrell. 
 
 Narrative and Critical History of America — Justin Win- 
 sor Louisburg Expedition. Vol. 5, Chapter 18. 
 
 The Taking of Louisburg — Samuel A. Drake. Boston — 
 Lee and Shepard. 
 
 New York Genealogical and Biographical Record — Sir 
 William Pepperrell — Vol. 18, p. 98. 
 
 New England Magazine — Sir William Pepperrell and 
 the capture of Louisburg — Vol. 12, p. 415. 
 
 Journal of the Siege of Louisburg — James Gibson. 
 
 New England Magazine — At the Siege of Louisburg — 
 Vol. 37, p. 72. 
 
 Naval and Military Heroes — Bohn, pp. 121, 166. 
 
 Belknap's History of New Hampshire — Vol. 2, p. 158 
 et seq. 
 
 London Magazine — July 2t„ 1745, August 3, 1745. 
 
 Magazine of American History — John Austin Stevens — 
 Sir William Pepperrell. Vol. 2, p. 673. 
 
 Gordon's History of America — Vol. i, p. no ct seq. 
 
 Journal and Letters — Curwen; pp. 602, 621. 
 
 Collections — Massachusetts Historical Society, ist series. 
 Vol. I, pp. 4-60. 
 
 Proceedings — Massachusetts Historical Society (1903). 
 Vol. 17, p. 27, 
 
 Collections — New York Historical Society. 
 
 Collections — New York State Library, Albany, N. Y. 
 
 17 
 
Half Century of Conflict — Parkman. Vol. 2, p. 72 et seq. 
 
 Modern History — Cambridge — Vol. 7, pp. 114-116. 
 
 History of United States. Bancroft — Vol. 3, Chap. 24. 
 
 History of Massachusetts — Hutchinson — Vol. 2, Chap. 4. 
 
 History of United States of North America — Grahame — 
 Vol. 3, p. 265 et seq. 
 
 Neglected Chapter of Colonial History: James Gibson 
 Johnson; Harpers Monthly. January, 1904. 
 
 The statements in the foregoing memorial are the result 
 of a very careful examination made by me of these au- 
 thorities and particularly of the contemporary accounts, 
 many of them in manuscript, in the collections of the Massa- 
 chusetts Historical Society, New York Historical Society 
 and the New York State Library. 
 
 It will be observed that in some of the statements, and 
 particularly those relating to the careful preparations made 
 for the expedition and the skill with which it was conducted, 
 we differ somewhat from the current accounts. It is not 
 surprising that a person making a special study of the life 
 of an individual, or an enterprise in which he was engaged, 
 should make a more thorough investigation of that 
 subject than a historian of the century. 
 
 Everett P. Wheeler. 
 
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