PREPARATIONS FOR WAR

century formed his morals. Notwithstanding his delicate health he was as indefatigable in pleasureseeking as in work. Haughty with his inferiors, supercilious in command, he was conciliatory with his equals. He was extremely prodigal and an ungovernable gambler. He had made a little Versailles of the intendancy at Quebec, where he imitated the manners of his master-the king. With all his vices he had the real qualities of ability, energy, and business experience.

Montcalm was not ignorant of the great preparations made by England for the campaign which was opening. The British parliament had in fact granted all the assistance which had been asked of it, in men and in money, to avenge the two disasters which had so profoundly humiliated it in the preceding year-that of General Braddock at Monongahela and that of Admiral Byng off the island of Minorca. It had voted an indemnity of a hundred and fifteen thousand pounds sterling for the colonies, had sent from Plymouth to New York two regiments with Generals Abercromby and Webb, and numerous transports loaded with tents, munitions of war, artillery and tools for the works of fortification; and lastly had named governor of Virginia and general-in-chief of the armies in North America, an old officer of a very different type to Braddock, Lord Loudon. The colonies, on their side, had resolved to raise ten thousand men to attack Fort St. Frédéric, and to build a road to Montreal; six thou

sand to secure Niagara; three thousand to assault Fort Duquesne; and finally two thousand to menace Quebec by way of the woods in the valley of the Chaudière. All these militiamen, added to the regular troops, formed an army of more than twentyfive thousand men, that is to say double the number that could be then got together by Canada. It was in face of such an armament that Vaudreuil, on the advice of Montcalm and de Lévis, ventured to take the offensive. The enterprise would have been more than rash if he had had to contend with as plucky soldiers and as able generals as his own.

After having drawn the attention of the enemy from Fort Carillon by the demonstration made by him, Montcalm hurried to Frontenac, where three thousand five hundred men were assembled including soldiers of the line, Canadians and Indians.

The expeditionary force crossed the lake, suddenly disembarked at Chouaguen (Oswego) and besieged it. It was taken with unprecedented rapidity, animation and good fortune. Twenty cannon carried by manual labour were mounted in batteries in a few hours. The English commander having been cut in two by a cannon ball the besieged were summoned to surrender, and given an hour to deliberate.

"The yells of our Indians," wrote Montcalm to his mother, "promptly decided them. They yielded themselves prisoners of war to the number of 1,700, including eighty officers and two regiments from England. I have taken from them five flags, three

THE CAPTURE OF OSWEGO

military chests full of money, a hundred and twentyone pieces of ordnance, including forty-five swivelguns, a year's supply of provisions for three thousand men, and six decked boats carrying from four to twenty guns each. And as it was necessary in this expedition to employ the utmost diligence, so that the Canadians might be sent to harvest their crops, and be brought back to another frontier, I demolished or burned their three forts, and brought away the artillery, boats, provisions and prisoners."

Montcalm, who understood the heart of the soldiery, resolved to celebrate his victory by a religious and patriotic demonstration, which would arouse the enthusiasm of the army. On the morning of August 20th, 1756, he planted a large cross bearing these words: "In hoc signo vincunt." And near this cross he planted a pole, upon which were placed the arms of France with the following device, which revealed the general's classical taste:"Manibus date lilia plenis." The troops were called to arms, and Abbé Piquet, the chaplain of the expedition, blessed the pious trophy, amid the beating of drums and the reiterated discharge of cannon and musketry.

The next day the French flotilla sailed away, after having saluted a last time the ephemeral monument of its victory. When the last of the boats had disappeared behind the angle of the cliff, the silence of primitive nature, that immense silence of infinite solitudes, scarcely disturbed by the

pas

sage of the breezes or the murmur of the waves, had already invaded the ruins of Oswego.

The fall of this fort, as sudden as it was unexpected, had come to the neighbouring colonies as a thunder clap. General Webb, who was marching to its relief, even dreaded that Montcalm might advance from Oswego upon him, and in his fright he burned the dépôts of supplies along the route, and as rapidly as he retreated, obstructed the river, which served as his means of communication, by throwing a large number of trees into it.

Lord Loudon ordered Winslow, who commanded at the head of Lake St. Sacrament, to abandon all offensive schemes, and to entrench himself strongly to keep the French in check. The effect of this British reverse made itself felt in England, where it was understood that France had an able general in Canada.

CHAPTER IV

CAMPAIGN OF 1757-TAKING OF WILLIAM

HENRY

THE campaign of 1757 was marked by a daring

achievement, no less remarkable than that of the preceding year, namely, the siege and the destruction of Fort William Henry.

Never had the star of France shone so brightly in the depths of the great American solitudes; never was such a variety of tribal people assembled under its flag; from the Sakis (Sacs), seated on their mats at the border of Wisconsin, and the Illinois, hunters of the buffalo, to the Abenakis and the Micmacs, accustomed to follow the salmon by torchlight and to spear them with the trusty nigog; from the Kikapoas of Lake Michigan, still pagans and anthropophagists to the Mohicans and the Chaouenous of the Blue Mountains.

The emissaries of Onontio,' sent in all directions during the winter to infuse the spirit of war, had been well received everywhere, even in the home of the Five Nations. The warriors, tattooed in black and vermillion, had lighted the council fire, smoked the calumet with them, and accepted their proposed alliance. The chichikoué, accompanying the war dance had been heard from one village to 'The Indian name for the governor of Canada.