[126] On Pownall’s map of 1776 is marked at the spot ‘The great portage one mile’, but the distance between the two rivers was rather greater.
[127] St. Leger’s dispatch to Burgoyne, dated Oswego, August 27, 1777, and written after his retreat, forms Appendix No. XIII to A State of the Expedition from Canada as laid before the House of Commons by Lieutenant-General Burgoyne. London, 1780.
[128] St. Leger reported it to be twelve miles distant.
[129] St. Leger says definitely, ‘Sir John Johnson put himself at the head of this party.’ Stone, on the other hand, makes out that Sir John Johnson remained behind in the camp and was at that part of it which was surprised by Willett (See Stone’s Life of Brant, 1838 ed., vol. i, p. 235, note). St. Leger says that he ‘could not send above 80 white men, Rangers and troops included, with the whole corps of Indians’, but all the accounts seem to agree in placing the number of Indians at 400 and no more.
[130] The details of the fighting at Oriskany, and Willett’s sortie from the fort, are more confusing and contradictory even than those of most battles and sieges. The American accounts make Oriskany an American victory, and Willett’s sortie a taking possession of the whole British camp, the contents of which, after the defenders had been put to flight, were carried off to the fort in seven wagons which made three trips between the fort and the camp. St. Leger, no doubt minimizing what happened, reported that the sortie resulted in no ‘further advantage than frightening some squaws and pilfering the packs of the warriors which they left behind them’. From the contemporary plan of the operations at Fort Stanwix it seems clear that Willett surprised only the post at the lower landing-place and not the whole British camp.
[131] See above pp. 96-7 and note.
[132] Junius to the Duke of Grafton, December 12, 1769.
[133] Walpole to the Honourable Henry Synan Conway, November 12, 1774.
[134] Letter to the Countess of Upper Ossory, June 14, 1787. See also letter to the same, January 16, 1786. ‘General Burgoyne’s Heiress, I hear, succeeded extremely well, and was besides excellently acted.’
[135] Letter to the Rev. William Mason, October 5, 1777. In this letter Horace Walpole, apparently without real ground, says that Burgoyne was the natural son of Lord Bingley.