[41] "Bateaux are a kind of light, flat-bottomed boats, widest in the middle and pointed at each end, of about fifteen hundred weight burden, and managed by two men, called bateaux-men, with paddles and setting poles, the rivers being in many places too narrow to admit of oars."—Smollett's Hist. of England, vol. iii., p. 457.
[42] "Mr. Burnet,[61] governor of New York and New Jersey, deemed it an object of great magnitude to obtain the command of Lake Ontario, and, in pursuance of this plan, he had, in 1722, erected a trading-house at Oswego, in the country of the Senecas, which soon became of considerable importance. After ineffectual remonstrances, both in America and in Europe, against the re-establishment of Niagara Fort, Governor Burnet, to countervail as much as possible its effects, erected at his own expense a fort at Oswego."—Marshall's Life of Washington, vol. iv., p. 287.
[43] "The preparations for General Shirley's expedition against Niagara were not only deficient, but shamefully slow, though it was well known that even the possibility of his success must in a great measure depend upon his setting out early in the year, as will appear to any person who considers the situation of our fort at Oswego, this being the only way by which he could proceed to Niagara. Oswego lies on the southeast side of Lake Ontario, near 300 miles almost due west from Albany, in New York. The way to it from thence, though long and tedious, is the more convenient, as the far greater part of it admits of water-carriage by the Mohawk River, Wood's Creek, Lake Oneida, and the River Onondaga, which, after a course of twenty or thirty miles, unites with the River Seneca, and their united streams run into the Lake Ontario at the place where Oswego Fort is situated."—Smollett, vol. iii., p. 458.
[44] "Though repeated advice had been received that the French had there at least 1000 men at their Fort of Frontenac, on the same lake; and, what was still worse, the new forts (that of Ontario, and a new fort bearing the same name as the old, Oswego) were not yet completed, but left to be finished by the hard labor of Colonel Mercer and his little garrison, with the addition of this melancholy circumstance, that if besieged during the winter, it would not be possible for his friends to come to his assistance."—Smollett's England, iii. p. 461.
[45] Russell's Modern Europe, vol. iii., p. 279.
"The justly celebrated Sir William Johnson held an office difficult both to define and execute. He might, indeed, be called the Tribune of the Five Nations; their claims he asserted, their rights he protected, and over their minds he possessed a greater sway than any individual had ever attained. He was an uncommonly tall, well-made man, with a fine countenance, which, moreover, had rather an expression of dignified sedateness, approaching to melancholy. He appeared to be taciturn, never wasting words on matters of no importance, but highly eloquent where the occasion called forth his powers. He possessed intuitive sagacity, and the most entire command of temper and of countenance. He did by no means lose sight of his own interest, but, on the contrary, raised himself to power and wealth in an open and active manner, not disdaining any honorable means of benefiting himself. He built two spacious and convenient places of residence on the Mohawk River, known afterward by the name of Johnson Castle and Johnson Hall. The Hall was his summer residence. Here this singular man lived like a little sovereign; kept an excellent table for strangers and officers, whom the course of their duty now frequently led into these wilds; and by confiding entirely in the Indians, and treating them with unwearied truth and justice, without ever yielding to solicitation that he had once refused, he taught them to repose entire confidence in him. So perfect was his dependence on those people, whom his fortitude and other manly virtues had attached to him, that when they returned from their summer excursions, and exchanged the last years furs for fire-arms, &c., they used to pass a few days at the Castle, when his family and most of his domestics were down at the Hall. There they were all liberally entertained by Sir William; and 500 of them have been known for nights together, after drinking pretty freely, to lie around him on the ground, while he was the only white person in a house containing great quantities of every thing that was to them valuable or desirable. Sir William thus united in his mode of life the calm urbanity of a liberal and extensive trader, with the splendid hospitality, the numerous attendance, and the plain though dignified manners of an ancient baron."—Memoirs of an American Lady, vol. ii., p. 61.
Sir William Johnson was regularly appointed and paid by government as Superintendent of Indian Affairs.
[46] "Few countries could produce such dexterous marksmen, or persons so well qualified for conquering those natural obstacles of thick woods and swamps, which would at once baffle the most determined European. Not only were they strong of limb, swift of foot, and excellent marksmen, the hatchet was as familiar to them as the musket; in short, when means or arguments could be used powerful enough to collect a people so uncontrolled and so uncontrollable, and when headed by a leader whom they loved and trusted, a well-armed body of New York Provincials had nothing to dread but an ague or an ambuscade, to both of which they were much exposed on the banks of the lakes, and amid the swampy forests they had to penetrate in pursuit of an enemy."—Memoirs of an American Lady, vol. i., p. 203.
[47] "Our artillery then began to play on them, and was served, under the direction of Captain Eyre ... in a manner very advantageous to his character."—Letter from General Johnson to the Governor of New York. Camp at Lake George, Sept. 9th, 1755.
[48] "Just arrived from America, and to be seen at the New York and Cape Breton Coffee-house, in Sweeting's Alley, from 12 to 3, and from 4 till 6, to the latter end of next week, and then will embark for America in the General Webb, Captain Boardman, a famous Mohawk Indian warrior! the same person who took M. Dieskau, the French general, prisoner, at the battle of Lake George, where General Johnson beat the French, and was one of the said general's guards. He is dressed in the same manner with his native Indians when they go to war; his face and body painted, with his scalping knife, tom-ax, and all other implements of war that are used by the Indians in battle: a sight worthy the curiosity of every true Briton.