“At the beginning of the fight several barges and pontoons coming from the Chute advanced in sight of Carillon. The steadiness of the volunteers of Bernard and Duprat, supported by Sieur de Poulharies at the head of a company of grenadiers and of a piquet of the Royal Roussillon, with a few cannon shots fired from the fort, made them retreat.
“These different attacks were almost all in the afternoon and almost everywhere of the greatest intensity.
“As the Canadians and the colonial troops had not been attacked they directed their fire upon the column which was attacking our right and which from time to time was within their range. This column, made up of English grenadiers and of Scotch Highlanders, charged repeatedly for three hours without either being rebuked or broken up, and several were killed at only fifteen feet from our lines.
“At about five o’clock the column which had attacked vigorously the Royal Roussillon threw itself back on the salient defended by the Regiment of Guyenne and by the left wing of the Bearn, the column which had attacked the right wing drew back also, so that the danger became urgent in those parts. The Chevalier de Lévis moved there with a few troops of the right [wing] at which the enemy was shooting. The Marquis de Montcalm hastened there also with some of the reserves and the enemy met a resistance which slowed up, at last, their ardor.
“The left was still standing up against the firing of two columns which were endeavoring to break through that part. The Sieur de Bourlamaque had been dangerously wounded there at about 4 o’clock and Sieur de Senezeraque and de Privast, Lieutenant Colonels of La Sarre and the Languedoc Regiments were taking his place and giving the best of orders. The Marquis de Montcalm rushed there several times and took pains to have help sent there in all critical moments.
“At 6 o’clock the two columns on the right gave up attacking the Guyenne battalions and made one more attempt against the Royal Roussillon and Berry. At last, after a last effort to the left, at 7 o’clock, the enemy retreated, protected by the shooting of the Rangers, which kept on until night. They abandoned on the battlefield their dead and some of their wounded.
“The darkness of the night, the exhaustion and small number of our troops, the strength of the enemy which, in spite of its defeat, was still in numbers superior to us, the nature of these woods in which one could not, without assistance of the savages, start out against an army which must have had from 400 to 500 of them, several trenches built in echelon from the battlefield up to their camp, those are the obstacles that prevented us following the enemy in its retreat. We even thought that they would attempt to take their revenge and we worked all night to escape attack from the neighboring heights by traverses, to improve the Canadian abatis, and to finish the batteries of the left and of the right [flanks] which had been begun in the morning.
“The 9th. Our volunteers having informed the Marquis de Montcalm that the post of the Chute and of the portage seemed abandoned, he gave orders to the Chevalier de Lévis to go the next day at day break with the grenadiers, the volunteers and the Canadians to reconnoitre what had become of the enemy.
“The Chevalier de Lévis advanced beyond the portage. He found everywhere the vestige of a hurried flight wounded, supplies, abandoned equipage, debris of barges and charred pontoons, unquestionable proofs of the great loss which the enemy had made. We estimate it at about 4,000 men killed or wounded. Were we to believe some of them, and judge by the promptitude of their retreat, it would be still more considerable. They have lost several officers and generals, Lord Howe, Sir Spitall, Major General Commander in Chief of the forces of New York, and several others.
“The savages of the Five Nations remained as spectators at the tail of the column; they were waiting probably to declare themselves after the result of a fight which, to the English, did not seem doubtful.