34 pp. 72, 73.
| Bradstreet takes Fort Frontenac. |
From July to October Abercromby remained at one end of Lake George, and Montcalm, who had received heavy reinforcements, at the other. Parties of Rangers and Canadians attacked each other on the Wood Creek line, but the main bodies were inactive. The presence of the English force had the advantage, however, of holding in their front so large a number of the enemy that the latter were unable adequately to protect other positions, and in consequence they lost Fort Frontenac. That competent officer, Colonel Bradstreet, had already proposed an expedition against this point, and when he renewed his proposal after the battle of Ticonderoga, Abercromby gave his consent, and spared him 3,600 men for the purpose, noting that 'he is not only very active, but has great knowledge of the country.'35
35 Abercromby to Pitt, July 12, 1758.
In August he moved up the Mohawk, took his troops past the Carrying Place from that river, where, on the site of Fort Williams, General Stanwix was busy building a new fort, reached the ruins of Oswego, put out across the lake, and on August 25 landed close to Fort Frontenac. By the twenty-seventh he had the fort at the mercy of his guns, and the small garrison of a little over a hundred men surrendered. The prisoners were sent on parole to Montreal, to be exchanged for a corresponding number of English; the fort was burnt, and guns, ships, and supplies were carried off or destroyed. It was an excellent piece of work for the English side; 'a great stroke,' as Wolfe wrote on hearing of it.36 Great material damage was caused to the French by, temporarily at any rate, cutting their communications with the west, and intercepting supplies which had been intended for the forts on the Ohio and on the upper lakes. The moral effect was greater still. The time-honoured French fort on Lake Ontario, the earliest French post on the lakes, had been with little effort taken and blotted out, reminding the waverers among the Five Nation Indians that, in spite of reverses, the English arm was strong and far-reaching, and the English alliance was for them a valuable asset.
36 Letter of Sept. 30, 1758 (Wright's Life of Wolfe, p. 457). In another letter (p. 465) he writes: 'Bradstreet's coup was masterly. He is a very extraordinary man.'
| Amherst becomes Commander-in-Chief in North America. |
Early in October Amherst came up to Abercromby's camp, and the two generals decided not to make a further attempt on Ticonderoga until the following year. 'General Amherst,' wrote Wolfe, 'thought the entrenchments so improved as to require more ceremony in the second attack than the season would allow of.'37 The troops were accordingly sent into winter quarters, and in November Abercromby received a letter of recall. Amherst became in his stead Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in North America.
37 Wright's Life of Wolfe, p. 469.
| The expedition against Fort Duquesne. |