dropping in from day to day, half dead with famine.

On the morning after the massacre the Indians decamped in a body and set out for Montreal, carrying with them their plunder and some two hundred prisoners, who, it is said, could not be got out of their hands. The soldiers were set to the work of demolishing the English fort; and the task occupied several days. The barracks were torn down, and the huge pine-logs of the rampart thrown into a heap. The dead bodies that filled the casemates were added to the mass, and fire was set to the whole. The mighty funeral pyre blazed all night. Then, on the sixteenth, the army re-embarked. The din of ten thousand combatants, the rage, the terror, the agony, were gone; and no living thing was left but the wolves that gathered from the mountains to feast upon the dead.1

1 The foregoing chapter rests largely on evidence never before brought to light, including the minute Journal of Bougainville, — a document which can hardly be commended too much, the correspondence of Webb, a letter of Colonel Frye, written just after the massacre, and a journal of the siege, sent by him to Governor Pownall as his official report. Extracts from these, as well as from the affidavit of Dr. Whitworth, which is also new evidence, are given in Appendix F.

The Diary of Malartic and the correspondence of Montcalm, Lévis, Vaudreuil, and Bigot, also throw light on the campaign, as well as numerous reports of the siege, official and semi-official. The long letter of the Jesuit Roubaud, printed anonymously in the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses, gives a remarkably vivid account of what he saw. He was an intelligent person, who may be trusted where he has no motive for lying. Curious particulars about him will be found in a paper called, The deplorable Case of Mr. Roubaud,

1757.]

SOURCES OF NARRATIVE.

203

printed in the Historical Magazine, Second Series, viii. 282. Compare Verreau, Report on Canadian Archives, 1874.

Impressions of the massacre at Fort William Henry have hitherto been derived chiefly from the narrative of Captain Jonathan Carver, in his Travels. He has discredited himself by his exaggeration of the number killed; but his account of what he himself saw, tallies with that of the other witnesses. He is outdone in exaggeration by an anonymous French writer of the time, who seems rather pleased at the occurrence, and affirms that all the English were killed except seven hundred, these last being captured, so that none escaped (Nouvelles du Canada envoyées de Montréal, Août, 1757). Carver puts killed and captured together at fifteen hundred. Vaudreuil, who always makes light of Indian barbarities, goes to the other extreme, and avers that no more than five or six were killed. Lévis and Roubaud, who saw everything, and were certain not to exaggerate the number, give the most trustworthy evidence on this point. The capitulation, having been broken by the allies of France, was declared void by the British Government.

The Signal of Butchery. Montcalm, Bougainville, and several others say that the massacre was begun by the Abenakis of Panaouski. Father Martin, in quoting the letter in which Montcalm makes this statement, inserts the word idolâtres, which is not in the original. Dussieux and O'Callaghan give the passage correctly. This Abenaki band, ancestors of the present Penobscots, were no idolaters, but had been converted more than half a century. In the official list of the Indian allies, they are set down among the Christians. Roubaud, who had charge of them during the expedition, speaks of these and other converts with singular candor: "Vous avez dû vous apercevoir . . . que nos sauvages, pour être Chrétiens, n'en sont pas plus irrépréhensibles dans leur conduite."

CHAPTER XVI.

1757, 1758.

A WINTER OF DISCONTENT.

BOASTS OF LOUDON.-A MUTINOUS MILITIA. - PANIC.- ACCUSATIONS OF VAUDREUIL: HIS WEAKNESS.-INDIAN BARBARITIES. -DESTRUCTION OF GERMAN FLATS. DISCONTENT OF MONT- FESTIVITIES AT MONTREAL. MONTCALM'S RELATIONS WITH THE GOVERNOR.- FAMINE. RIOTS. - MUTINY.-WINTER AT TICONDEROGA.- A DESPERATE BUSH-FIGHT. DEFEAT OF THE RANGERS. ADVENTURES OF ROCHE AND PRINGLE.

CALM. —

LOUDON, on his way back from Halifax, was at sea off the coast of Nova Scotia when a despatch-boat from Governor Pownall of Massachusetts startled him with news that Fort William Henry was attacked; and a few days after he learned by another boat that the fort was taken and the capitulation "inhumanly and villanously broken." On this he sent Webb orders to hold the enemy in check without risking a battle till he should himself arrive. "I am on the way," these were his words, "with a force sufficient to turn the scale, with God's assistance; and then I hope we shall teach the French to comply with the laws of nature and humanity. For although I abhor berharity, the knowledge I have of Mr. Vaudreuil's

1757.]

A MUTINOUS MILITIA.

205

and now at Fort William Henry, will oblige me to make those gentlemen sick of such inhuman villany whenever it is in my power." He reached New York on the last day of August, and heard that the French had withdrawn. He nevertheless sent his troops up the Hudson, thinking, he says, that he might still attack Ticonderoga; a wild scheme, which he soon abandoned, if he ever seriously entertained it.1

Webb had remained at Fort Edward in mortal dread of attack. Johnson had joined him with a band of Mohawks; and on the day when Fort William Henry surrendered there had been some talk of attempting to throw succors into it by night. Then came the news of its capture; and now, when it was too late, tumultuous mobs of militia came pouring in from the neighboring provinces. In a few days thousands of them were bivouacked on the fields about Fort Edward, doing nothing, disgusted and mutinous, declaring that they were ready to fight, but not to lie still without tents, blankets, or kettles. Webb writes on the fourteenth that most of those from New York had deserted, threatening to kill their officers if they tried to stop them. Delancey

1 Loudon to Webb, 20 August, 1757. Loudon to Holdernesse, October, 1757. Loudon to Pownall, 16 [18] August, 1757. A passage in this last letter, in which Loudon says that he shall, if prevented by head-winds from getting into New York, disembark the troops on Long Island, is perverted by that ardent partisan, William Smith, the historian of New York, into the absurd declaration "that he should encamp on Long Island for the defence of the continent."

ordered them to be fired upon. A sergeant was shot, others were put in arrest, and all was disorder till the seventeenth; when Webb, learning that the French were gone, sent them back to their homes.1

Close on the fall of Fort William Henry came crazy rumors of disaster, running like wildfire through the colonies. The number and ferocity of the enemy were grossly exaggerated; there was a cry that they would seize Albany and New York itself; 2 while it was reported that Webb, as much frightened as the rest, was for retreating to the Highlands of the Hudson. This was the day after the capitulation, when a part only of the militia had yet appeared. If Montcalm had seized the moment, and marched that afternoon to Fort Edward, it is not impossible that in the confusion he might have carried it by a coup de main.

Here was an opportunity for Vaudreuil, and he did not fail to use it. Jealous of his rival's exploit, he spared no pains to tarnish it; complaining that Montcalm had stopped halfway on the road to success, and, instead of following his instructions, had contented himself with one victory when he should have gained two. But the governor had enjoined upon him as a matter of the last necessity that the Canadians should be at their homes before September

1 Delancey to [Holdernesse ?], 24 August, 1757.

2 Captain Christie to Governor Wentworth, 11 August, 1757. Ibid., to Governor Pownall, same date.

8 Smith, Hist. N. Y., Part II. 254.