Loudoun's progress towards the goal of capturing Louisbourg appears to have been too cautious for Hay's liking. The French had sent heavy naval reinforcements, and the attack was called off. Hay had arrived at Halifax on 9 July and was dismayed at the inaction of his superiors. Colonel John Forbes overheard him criticising the conduct of the campaign, commenting while their troops exercised in a sham attack that "by God, difficult as it may be, I shall find a method of letting the mother country know what is doing here, that we are taken up in building sham forts and making approaches to them, when we should be employed in real attacks. The fleet should sail up the bason, and have a sham fight there; and then we might write home that we had a sea fight and taken a fort." He was also said to have commented that "the general was keeping the courage of his majesty's troops at bay, and expending the nation's wealth in making sham sieges and planting cabbages when he ought to have been fighting." The news reached Loudoun, who had Hay arrested in July for "uttering various opprobrious and disrespectful speeches". He did not press a charge though, instead suggesting that "the voyage, climate and season of the year have been prejudicial to his Lordship’s health." The implication was that Hay had gone mad, or suffered a breakdown, and he was closely confined for seven months while awaiting passage back to England. He volunteered for service aboard the 74-gun , which had arrived in Halifax in May 1758 under the command of Captain George Brydges Rodney, carrying Major-General Jeffery Amherst. Hay observed the successful siege and capture of Louisbourg from the "Dublin", before his return to England aboard .