[17] Feeble Plantations. No permanent settlements were begun west of the Green Mountains till after the conquest of Canada. After that, the report of soldiers who had passed over the military road from Charlestown on the Connecticut River, to Crown Point, brought a swarm of settlers into what is now Bennington County. Settlement began in Rutland County in 1771.
[18] General Arthur St. Clair, of Scotch birth, had been a lieutenant with Wolfe at Quebec; he resigned and settled in Pennsylvania; served with our army in Canada; made brigadier, August, 1776; major-general, February, 1777.
[19] Abercromby lost two thousand men in assaulting these lines in 1758. Since then they had been greatly strengthened.
[20] Through Old Paths. The Indians had passed this way centuries before the fortress was thought of.
[21] St. Clair seems to have waited just long enough for the defence to become difficult, to admit its impossibility. He chose the part of safety rather than that of glory.