orders, he exerted an active zeal in bringing them forward to support the expedition. His success was answerable to his efforts. Whether by the influence of his name, which was extreme among these tribes, from their avidity to grasp the presents of the English, or from their innate thirst for blood and plunder, their remote as well as near nations poured forth their warriors in such abundance, that the British generals became apprehensive that their numbers might render them rather a clog than any real addition of strength to the army. They hastened therefore to dismiss such as appeared the least proper for war, or the most cruel or intractable. Never, perhaps, was an army of no greater force than this accompanied by so formidable a train of artillery, as well from the number of pieces, as from the skill of those who served it. This powerful apparatus was considered eminently requisite to disperse without effort an undisciplined enemy in the open country, or to dislodge him from strong and difficult places. The generals who seconded Burgoyne in this expedition, were all able and excellent officers. The principal were, majorgeneral Phillips, of the artillery, who had distinguished himself in the wars of Germany; the brigadier-generals Frazer, Powel, and Hamilton, with the Brunswick major-general Baron Reidesel, and brigadier-general Specht. The whole army shared in the ardor and hopes of its chiefs; not a doubt was entertained of an approaching triumph, and the conquest of America.

The preparations being at length completed, and all the troops, as well national as auxiliary, having arrived, general Burgoyne proceeded to encamp near the little river Bouquet, upon the west bank of Lake Champlain, at no great distance to the north of Crown Point. As the time for commencing hostilities was near at hand, and dreading the consequences of the barbarity of the savages, which, besides the dishonor it reflected upon the British arms, might prove essentially prejudicial to the success of the expedition, he resolved to assemble those barbarians in congress, and afterwards, in compliance with their customs, to give them a war feast. He made a speech to them on that occasion, calculated, in terms of singular energy, to excite their ardor in the common cause, and at the same time to repress their ferocious propensities. To this end, he endeavored to explain to them the distinction between a war carried on against a common enemy, in which the whole country and people were hostile, and the present, in which the faithful were intermixed with rebels, and traitors with friends. He recommended and strictly enjoined them, that they should put none to death but such as actually opposed them with arms in their hands; that old men, women, children, and prisoners, should be held sacred from the knife or tomahawk, even in the heat of action; that they should scalp only those whom they had slain in battle; but that under no pretext, or color of prevarication, they should scalp the wounded, or even the

dying, and much less kill them, by way of evading the injunction. He promised them a due reward for every prisoner they brought him in, but denounced the severest penalties against those who should scalp the living.

While, on the one hand, general Burgoyne attempted to mitigate the natural ferocity of the Indians, he endeavored, on the other, to render them an object of terror with those who persisted in resistance. For this purpose, on the twenty-ninth of June, he issued a proclamation from his camp at Putnam Creek, wherein he magnified the force of the British armies and fleets which were about to embrace and to crush every part of America. He painted, with great vivacity of coloring, the excesses committed by the chiefs of the rebellion, as well as the deplorable condition to which they had reduced the colonies. He reminded the Americans of the arbitrary imprisonments and oppressive treatment with which those had been persecuted who had shown themselves faithful to their king and country; he enlarged upon the tyrannic cruelties inflicted by the assemblies and committees upon the most quiet subjects, without distinction of age or sex, for the sole offence, and often for the sole suspicion of having adhered in principle to the government under which they were born, under which they had lived for so long a time, and to which, by every tie divine and human, they owed allegiance. He instanced the violence offered to their consciences, by the exaction of oaths and of military services, in support of an usurpation they abhorred. He had come, he continued, with a numerous and veteran army, and in the name of the king, to put an end to such unheard of enormities. He invited the well disposed to join him, and assist in redeeming their country from slavery, and in the reestablishment of legal government. He promised protection and security to all those who should continue quietly to pursue their occupations; who should abstain from removing their cattle, or corn, or any species of forage; from breaking up the bridges, or obstructing the roads, and in a word, from committing any act of hostility; and who, on the contrary, should furnish the camp with all sorts of provisions, assured as they might be, of receiving the full value thereof, in solid coin. But against the contumacious, and those who should persist in rebellion, he denounced the most terrible war; he warned them that justice and vengeance were about to overtake them, accompanied with devastation, famine, aud all the calamities in their train. Finally, he admonished them not to flatter themselves, that distance or coverts could screen them from his pursuit, for he had only to let loose the thousands of Indians that were under his direction to discover in their most secret retreats, and to punish with condign severity, the hardened enemies of Great Britain and America.

This manifesto, so little worthy of the general of a civilised nation, was justly censured, not only in the two houses of parliament and throughout Great Britain, but excited the indignation of every mode

rate and generous mind in all Europe. In vain did Burgoyne attempt to excuse himself, by pretending that he had merely intended to intimidate the people he was about to combat; he should have employed for this purpose the arms that are in use among polished nations, and not the menaces appropriate to barbarians. Moreover his soldiers, and especially the savages, were already but too much disposed to ravage and massacre, and to take in earnest what their general would have it believed he only announced as an artifice or feint. This was was not a race to be sported with, and the thing itself was no light matter. Be this as it may, the proclamation produced an effect entirely contrary to its author's expectations. That fearless people who inhabit New England, far from allowing it to terrify them, were much inclined to deride it; they never met with each other without contemptuously inquiring what vent the vaunting general of Britain had found for his pompous and ridiculous declamations? These preliminary dispositions accomplished, general Burgoyne made a short stop at Crown Point, for the establishment of magazines, an hospital, and other necessary services, and then proceeded with all his troops to invest Ticonderoga. The right wing took the western bank of the lake, the left advanced upon the eastern, and the centre was embarked upon the lake itself. The reduction of this fortress, without which it was impossible for the army to advance a step further, was of course the first object of its operations. Art had added to the natural strength of Ticonderoga, and the unfortunate issue of the attempt made upon it by the British in 1758, when occupied by the French, was still fresh in remembrance. But general Burgoyne, either impatient to avenge this affront, or because the ardor of his army seemed to promise him an easy triumph over the most formidable obstacles, persuaded himself that its reduction would detain him but a very short time. He arrived under the walls of the place on the first of July. At the same time, the detachment of light troops which, as we have mentioned above, was destined to scour the country of the Mohawks, under the command of sir John Johnson and colonel St. Leger, advanced from Oswego, in order to attack Fort Stanwix. It was intended, after the acquisition of this fortress, to occupy the ground which extends between the same and Fort Edward, situated upon the banks of the Hudson, with a view to intercept the retreat of the garrison of Ticonderoga, and to rejoin the main army as it advanced.

The American army, destined to oppose the progress of the royal troops, and to defend Ticonderoga, was altogether insufficient. The garrison had experienced such a diminution during the winter, that it was much feared the English would seize that fortress by assault. The spring being arrived, and the rumors of the enemy's approach receiving daily confirmation, general Schuyler, to whom the Congress had recently given the command of all the troops in that quarter, employed

every possible means to procure reenforcements. He desired and hoped to assemble an army of at least ten thousand men, as a smailer number would not be adequate to guard his extensive line of defence. But the affair of recruiting proceeded very tardily. The inhabitants manifested at this time an extreme backwardness to enlist under the banners of Congress, whether from a natural coldness, or because the policy of the English, or the persuasion of the American generals themselves, had given currency to an opinion that the royal army was not to undertake the siege of Ticonderoga; but, that embarking upon the Saint Lawrence, it would proceed by sea, to operate its junction with that under general Howe. Hence, when the royal troops made their sudden appearance under the walls of Ticonderoga, the troops of general Schuyler amounted, at the utmost, to not over five thousand men, including the garrison of the fortress, which consisted of little above three thousand, a number quite inadequate to the defence of so vast a circuit of walls, and of so many outworks.

Ticonderoga lies upon the western bank of that narrow inlet, by which the water from Lake George is conveyed to Lake Champlain. Crown Point lies about a dozen miles further north, at the opposite extremity of that inlet. The first of these places is situated on an angle of land, which is surrounded on three sides by water, and that covered by steep and difficult rocks. A great part of the fourth side was covered by a deep morass, and where that fails, the old French lines still continued as a defence on the northwest quarter. The Americans had strengthened these lines with additional works and a blockhouse. In like manner, on the left, towards Lake George, and at the place where the sawmills were situated, they had erected new works and blockhouses, as also to the right of the French lines, in the direction of Lake Champlain. On the eastern bank of the inlet, and opposite to Ticonderoga, rises a high circular hill, to which the Ainericans gave the name of Mount Independence. On the summit of this hill is a small plain, where they had erected a star fort; the sides and foot of the mountain were strengthened with works to the water's edge, and the intrenchments well lined with heavy cannon. In order to, maintain a free communication between the fortress and Mount Independence, the Americans bad constructed a bridge over the inlet, a work of difficult and laborious execution. The bridge was supported on twenty-two timber piers of vast dimensions, sunken at nearly equal distance; the spaces between these were filled with separate floats, each about fifty feet long and twelve feet wide, and the whole was held together by chains and rivets of immense size. To prevent the enemy from approaching with his numerous ships, and attempting to force the bridge, it was defended on the side towards Lake Champlain by a boom composed of very large pieces of timber, joined together with iron bolts and chains of prodigious thickness. Thus, not only the passage was kept open between these two posts, but all access by

water from the northern side was totally cut off. The part of the inlet which is below Ticonderoga, and which may be considered as the head of Lake Champlain, widens considerably and becomes navigable to vessels of burthen; but the other part, which is above the fortress, and is the issue of Lake George, besides being narrow, is also rendered impracticable by shallows and falls. But on its arrival at Ticonderoga, it is joined by a great body of water on the eastern side, called, in this part, South river, and higher up towards its source, as we have already said in a preceding book, it is known under the appellation of Wood Creek. The confluence of these waters, at Ticonderoga forms a small bay to the southward of the bridge of communication, and the point of land formed by their junction, is composed of a mountain called Sugar Hill, otherwise known by the name of Mount Defiance. From this mountain the fort of Ticonderoga is overlooked and effectually commanded. This circumstance occasioned a consultation among the Americans, in which it was proposed to fortify that mountain; but finding themselves too feeble to man the fortifications they had already erected, they renounced the design. It was likewise hoped, that the extreme steepness of its ascent, and the savage irregularity of the ground on its summit and sides, would prevent the enemy from attempting to occupy it, at least with artillery. The defence of Ticonderoga was committed to the charge of general St. Clair, with a garrison of three thousand men, one third of whom were militia from the northern provinces. But they were ill equipped, and worse armed, particularly in the article of bayonets, an arm so essential in the defence of lines; not having one to ten of their number.

On the second of July, the British right wing under general Phillips, having appeared upon the left flank of the fortress, St. Clair, too weak to defend all the outworks, or believing the enemy stronger than he was in reality, immediately ordered the evacuation of the intrenchments which had been erected upon the banks of the inlet of Lake George, above Ticonderoga. This order was executed with promptitude, not, however, without having first burnt or destroyed whatever was found in this part, and especially, the blockhouses and sawmills. General Phillips profiting of the occasion, took possession, without the least opposition on the part of the besieged, of a post of great importance, called Mount Hope, which besides commanding their lines in a great and dangerous degree, totally cut off their communication with Lake George. Mount Hope being thus secured, the British corps which had advanced upon the western bank of Lake Champlain, extended itself from the mountain to the lake, so as completely to invest the fort on the part of the northwest, and to cut off its communication with the land. The German column, commanded by Reidesel, which had marched along the eastern shore of the lake, was also arrived under the walls of the fortress, and was established at Three-miles Point, extending itself from the bank of the lake, be