They were by no means idle. While the British were preparing to attack Crown Point they were preparing to defend it, having first got warning of their purpose from the letters of the unfortunate Braddock found on the battlefield, which information was confirmed by the report of a reconnoitring party that had made its way as far as the Hudson, and returned with the news that Johnson's forces were already on the field.
The Marquis de Vandreuil, Governor of Canada, who on his part had been meditating an expedition for the capture of Oswego, and for this purpose had got together several battalions of regular soldiers under the command of Baron Dieskau, thereupon changed their destination from Lake Ontario to Lake Champlain.
Passing up the Richelieu River these troops embarked in boats and canoes for Crown Point. Their veteran leader knew that the foes with whom he had to deal were not disciplined soldiers, but simply a mob of countrymen, and he never doubted for a moment that he would put them to flight at the first meeting, and keep them going until he had chased them back to Albany. Such, too, was the pleasant conviction of the Marquis de Vandreuil, who wrote to him in this strain:
"Make all haste, for when you return we shall send you to Oswego to execute our first design."
And he had obeyed orders to such good purpose that while Johnson's force lay idle at Lake George he had reached Crown Point at the head of nearly four thousand men, regulars, Canadians, and Indians.
Dieskau had no thought of waiting to be attacked. His troops were commanded to hold themselves ready to move at a moment's notice. The officers were bidden to take nothing with them but one spare shirt, one spare pair of shoes, a blanket, a bearskin, and twelve days' provisions, while the Indians were strictly enjoined not to amuse themselves by taking scalps until the enemy was entirely defeated, since they could kill ten men in the time required to scalp one, a grim injunction that reveals like a lightning flash the barbarity of that border warfare when all the laws of humanity were ignored.
Early in the month of September a scouting party brought in an English prisoner caught near Fort Lyman. He was questioned under threat of being handed over to the Indians for torture if he did not tell the truth, but, nothing daunted, he endeavored to lure the French into a trap by telling them that the English army had fallen back to Albany, leaving only a few hundred men at Fort Lyman, which he said was a place to be easily taken.
Dieskau at once resolved on a rapid movement to seize the fort, and, leaving a part of his force at Ticonderoga, he embarked the rest in canoes, and hurried along through the narrow part of Lake Champlain, stretching southward through the wilderness.
Reaching the lower end of the lake they left their canoes under guard, and began their march through the dense forest toward Fort Lyman. They numbered fifteen hundred in all, and it was concerning their approach that the report had been brought in to the English camp, which Seth Allen was ready to carry to the endangered fort.
"You seem a likely lad," said Johnson when Seth was brought to him, "and will no doubt do as well as any one. You had better take a horse. You will run a better chance of getting through."