King George’s War

King George’s War, third of four North American wars, waged by the British and French from 1744 to 1748, and corresponding to the European War of the Austrian Succession. During the period of peace after Queen Anne's War (1702-13), irreconcilable conflicts arose between the French and British for control of North America. In 1744 the French captured and destroyed a British fort at Canso, Nova Scotia, and carried the prisoners to the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island. Governor William Shirley of Massachusetts, fearing French invasion, appealed to the other colonies for aid. A force of about 4000 militiamen was raised and placed under the command of Sir William Pepperell, a Maine merchant. In April 1745, the colonial troops sailed in British ships from Boston against Louisbourg. On June 15, after seven weeks of attack, the colonials captured the supposedly impregnable fortress at Louisbourg.

The next year France sent a fleet to retake Louisbourg and attack Boston, but the fleet was scattered by a storm. In 1747 a second fleet sent for the same purpose was intercepted and defeated by a British squadron. At the end of the war in 1748, Louisbourg was returned to the French by the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in return for British control of Madras (now Chennai), India (see Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaties of). The settlement disgruntled the colonists, and the British only partly placated the colonists by bearing the entire expense of the Louisbourg expedition. The question of colonial control was later resolved in the French and Indian War (1754-63).