Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/673

LOUISA ULRICA LOUISBURG 667 as Frederick William III. During the cam- paign of 1806 she accompanied him to Thurin- gia, and after the battle of Jena to Konigsberg. After the fatal battle of Friedland in 1807 she visited Napoleon at Tilsit, with a view of ob- taining for Prussia favorable conditions of peace ; but not succeeding in her negotiation, she joined her husband at Mem el, and in 1808 returned with him to Konigsberg, from whence she proceeded at the end of the year to St. Petersburg. She went to Berlin in 1809, and died the next year while on a visit to her father at Strelitz. She was greatly beloved by the Prussian people. See "The Life and Times of Louisa, Queen of Prussia," by Elizabeth Harriet Hudson (2 vols., London, 1874). LOUISA ULRICA, queen of Sweden, born in Berlin, July 24, 1720, died in Stockholm, July 16, 1782. She was a sister of Frederick the Great, and married in 1744 the crown prince and future king Adolphus Frederick of Swe- den. She distinguished herself by her great intelligence and persuasive powers, by her pat- ronage of Linnaaus and of science and art, and by establishing at her own expense the acade- my of belles-lettres and history and the muse- um at Stockholm, and the library and art mu- seum at the palace of Drottningholm. Her efforts to make the crown more independent of the nobles, and to indoctrinate her sons, Gus- tavus III. and Charles XIII., with her views, made her many enemies ; and after the death of her husband (1771) she appeared little at court. LOUIS OF BADEN. See BADEN-BADEN, LUD- WIG WILHELM I., margrave of. LOUIS THE GREAT, king of Hungary and Po- land, born in 1326, died Sept. 14, 1382. He suc- ceeded his father Charles Robert of Hungary in 1342. In 1347 he made an expedition to Na- ples to avenge on Queen Joanna the assassina- tion of her husband and cousin Andrew, his brother. Joanna having fled to Avignon, he had himself proclaimed king of Naples, but after a second expedition made peace with her in 1350. (See JOANNA, I.) He conquered Mol- davia and Bulgaria, and had previously extorted homage from the waywode of Wallachia. In 1370 he succeeded his uncle Casimir the Great on the throne of Poland, his realms then ex- tending from the Baltic to the Black sea and the Adriatic. Of his two daughters, Mary suc- ceeded him in Hungary, and Hedvig in Poland. LOUISBURG, a ruined town of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada, on the S. E. side of the island of Cape Breton, in lat. 45 54' N., Ion. 59 52' W. Its present population consists of only a few fishermen. After the surrender of the French settlements in Nova Scotia to Eng- land by the peace of Utrecht in 1713, emigrants from those settlements occupied the coasts of the neighboring island of Cape Breton, and Louisburg, so named in honor of Louis XIV., began to be fortified by the French govern- ment on a gigantic scale, with the intention of making it the strongest fortress in America, and a commanding naval, fishing, and com- mercial station. The town was about 2 m. in circumference, and stood upon a neck on the S. side of the harbor, a beautiful and ex- tensive land-locked basin with an entrance half a mile broad. It was fortified by a wall from 30 to 36 ft. high, with a ditch 80 ft. broad. The main works mounted 65 heavy cannon and 16 mortars. On Goat island, at the entrance to the harbor, was a battery of 30 guns, and at the bottom of the harbor op- posite the entrance was another called the royal battery, which mounted also 30 guns. These fortifications had been 30 years in building, and had cost $5,000,000. The neigh- borhood of Louisburg caused great uneasi- ness in New England, whose fisheries were threatened with ruin by the privateers who found refuge in its harbor. In 1745, Great Britain being at war with France, Gov. Shir- ley of Massachusetts devised a plan for taking Louisburg, which was adopted by the legis- lature of that province in secret session by a majority of one vote. Forces were promptly raised, and William Pepperell was appoint- ed commander. Connecticut sent 516 men, New Hampshire 304, and Massachusetts 3,250. Embarked in 100 New England vessels, and supported by a British squadron under Com- modore Warren, they landed near Louisburg on April 30. The place was defended by a garri- son of 1,600 men commanded by Ducham- bon. A detachment stationed in the royal bat- tery on the shore of the harbor, struck with panic at the approach of the New Hampshire troops led by William Vaughan, spiked their guns and abandoned their post in the night. Vaughan took possession of it next morning, and beat off the French who attempted to recover it. Major Seth Pomroy, a gunsmith from Northampton, with 20 other smiths, suc- ceeded in drilling out the cannon, and fire was soon opened on the city. The siege, though prosecuted with energy and vigilance, was con- ducted in the most irregular and unscientific manner. On May 18 a large French ship of war laden with military stores for the supply of the garrison, and with a body of troops on board, was intercepted and taken by the Eng- lish fleet. Disheartened by this disaster, and alarmed by the erection of a battery on the lighthouse cliff which commanded Goat island, the French commandant capitulated on June 17, the 49th day of the siege. This achieve- ment called forth great rejoicings in New England and in New York and Philadelphia, and its influence was felt 30 years later at the beginning of the revolutionary war. Col. Gridley, who planned Pepperell's batteries, laid out the American intrenchments at Bunker Hill ; the same old drums that beat on the tri- umphal entrance of the New Englanders into Louisburg, June 17, 1745, beat at Bunker Hill, June 17, 1775; and when Gen. Gage was erecting breastworks on Boston neck, "the provincial troops sneeringly remarked that his mud walls were nothing compared with the