FORT WILLIAM-HENRY TAKEN by the FRENCH.
Lord Loudon’s departure from New-York, with all the forces he was able to collect, afforded the marquis de Montcalm the fairest occasion of improving the successes of the former campaign. That general had, in the very commencement of the season, made three different attacks on fort William-Henry, in all of which he was repulsed by the vigour and resolution of the garrison. But his disappointment here was balanced by an advantage gained by a party of regulars and Indians at Ticonderoga. Colonel John Parker, with a detachment of near four hundred men, went by water, in whale and bay boats, to attack the enemy’s advanced guard at that place. Landing at night on an island, he sent before dawn three boats to the main land, which the enemy waylaid and took. Having procured the necessary intelligence from the prisoners of the colonel’s designs, they contrived their measures, placed three hundred men in ambush behind the point where he proposed landing, and sent three batteaux to the place of rendezvous. Colonel Parker mistaking these for his own boats, eagerly put to shore, was surrounded by the enemy, reinforced with four hundred men, and attacked with such impetuosity, that, of the whole detachment, only two officers and seventy private men escaped. Flushed with this advantage, animated by the absence of the British commander-in-chief, then at Halifax, and fired with a desire to revenge the disgrace he had lately sustained before fort Henry, Montcalm drew together all his forces, with intention to lay siege to that place. Fort William-Henry stands on the southern coast of Lake George; it was built with a view to protect and cover the frontiers of the English colonies, as well as to command the lake; the fortifications were good, defended by a garrison of near three thousand men, and covered by an army of four thousand, under the conduct of general Webb, posted at no great distance. When the marquis de Montcalm had assembled all the forces at Crown-Point, Ticonderoga, and the adjacent posts, together with a considerable body of Canadians and Indians, amounting in the whole to near ten thousand men, he marched directly to the fort, made his approaches, and began to batter it with a numerous train of artillery. On the very day he invested the place he sent a letter to colonel Monro the governor, telling him, he thought himself obliged, in humanity, to desire he would surrender the fort, and not provoke the great number of savages in the French army by a vain resistance. “A detachment of your garrison has lately,” say she, “experienced their cruelty; I have it yet in my power to restrain them, and oblige them to observe a capitulation, as none of them hitherto are killed. Your persisting in the defence of your fort can only retard its fate a few days, and must of necessity expose an unfortunate garrison, who can possibly receive no relief, considering the precautions taken to prevent it. I demand a decisive answer, for which purpose I have sent the sieur Funtbrane, one of my aids-de-camp. You may credit what he will inform you of, from Montcalm.” General Webb beheld his preparations with an indifference and security bordering on infatuation. It is credibly reported, that he had private-intelligence of all the French general’s designs and motions; yet, either despising his strength, or discrediting the information, he neglected collecting the militia in time; which, in conjunction with his own forces, would probably have obliged Montcalm to relinquish the attempt, or at least have rendered his success very doubtful and hazardous. The enemy meeting with no disturbance from the quarter they most dreaded, prosecuted the siege with vigour, and were warmly received by the garrison, who fired with great spirit till they had burst almost all their cannon, and expended their ammunition. Neither Montcalm’s promises or threats could prevail upon them to surrender, while they were in a condition to defend themselves, or could reasonably expect assistance from general Webb. They even persisted to hold out after prudence dictated they ought to surrender. Colonel Monro was sensible of the importance of his charge, and imagined that general Webb, though slow in his motions, would surely make some vigorous efforts either to raise the siege, or force a supply of ammunition, provisions, and other necessaries, into the garrison. At length necessity obliged him, after sustaining a siege from the third to the ninth day of August, to hang out a flag of truce, which was immediately answered by the French commander. Hostages were exchanged, and articles of capitulation signed by both parties. It was stipulated, that the garrison of fort William-Henry, and the troops in the intrenched camp, should march out with their arms, the baggage of the officers and soldiers, and all the usual necessaries of war, escorted by a detachment of French troops, and interpreters attached to the savages; that the gate of the fort should be delivered to the troops of the most christain king, immediately after signing the capitulation; and the retrenched camp, on the departure of the British forces; that the artillery, warlike stores, provisions, and in general every thing, except the effects of soldiers and officers, should, upon honour, be delivered to the French troops; for which purpose it was agreed there should be delivered, with the capitulation, an exact inventory of the stores and other particulars specified; that the garrison of the fort, and the troops in the retrenchment and dependencies, should not serve for the space of eighteen months, from the date of the capitulation, against his most christian majesty, or his allies; that with the capitulation there should be delivered an exact state of the troops, specifying the names of the officers, engineers, artillery-men, commissaries, and all employed; that the officers and soldiers, Canadians, women, and savages, made prisoners by land since the commencement of the war in North America, should be delivered in the space of three months at Carillon; in return for whom an equal number of the garrison of fort William-Henry should be capacitated to serve agreeably to the return given by the English officer, and the receipt of the French commanding officers, of the prisoners so delivered: that an officer should remain as an hostage, till the safe return of the escort sent with the troops of his Britannic majesty; that the sick and wounded, not in a condition to be transported to fort Edward, should remain under the protection of the marquis de Montcalm; who engaged to use them with tenderness and humanity, and to return them as soon as recovered: that provisions for two days should be issued out for the British troops: that in testimony of his esteem and respect for colonel Monro and his garrison, on account of their gallant defence, the marquis do Montcalm should return one cannon, a six-pounder. Whether the marquis de Montcalm was really assiduous to have these articles punctually executed we cannot pretend to determine; but certain it is, they were perfidiously broke in almost every instance. The savages in the French interest either paid no regard to the capitulation, or were permitted, from views of policy, to act the most treacherous, inhuman, and insidiuous part. They fell upon the British troops as they marched out, despoiled them of their few remaining effects, dragged the Indians in the English service out of their ranks, and assassinated them with circumstances of unheard-of barbarity. Some British soldiers, with their wives and children, are said to have been savagely murdered by those brutal Indians, whose ferocity the French commander could not effectually restrain. The greater part of the English garrison, however, arrived at fort Edward, under the protection of the French escort. The enemy demolished the fort, carried off the effects, provisions, artillery, and every thing else left by the garrison, together with the vessels preserved in the lake, and departed, without pursuing their success by any other attempt. Thus ended the third campaign in America, where, with an evident superiority over the enemy, an army of twenty thousand regular troops, a great number of provincial forces, and a prodigious naval power, not less than twenty ships of the line, we abandoned our allies, exposed our people, suffered them to be cruelly massacred in sight of our troops, and relinquished a large and valuable tract of country, to the eternal reproach and disgrace of the British name.
NAVAL TRANSACTIONS IN AMERICA.
As to the naval transactions in this country, though less infamous, they were not less unfortunate. Immediately on lord Loudon’s departure from Halifax, admiral Holbourn, now freed from the care of the transports, set sail for Louisbourg, with fifteen ships of the line, one ship of fifty guns, three small frigates, and a fire-ship. What the object of this cruise might have been can only be conjectured. Some imagine curiosity was the admiral’s sole motive, and the desire of informing himself with certainty of the enemy’s strength, while others persuade themselves that he was in hopes of drawing M. de la Mothe to an engagement, notwithstanding his superiority in number of ships and weight of metal. Be this as it may, the British squadron appeared off Louisbourg on the twentieth day of August, and approaching within two miles of the batteries, saw the French admiral make the signal to unmoor. Mr. Holbourn was greatly inferior in strength, and it is obvious that his design was not to fight the enemy, as he immediately made the best of his way to Halifax. About the middle of September, being reinforced with four ships of the line, he again proceeded to Louisbourg, probably with intention, if possible, to draw the enemy to an engagement; but he found de la Mothe too prudent to hazard an unnecessary battle, the loss of which would have greatly exposed all the French colonies. Here the English squadron continued cruising until the twenty-fifth, when they were overtaken by a terrible storm from the southward. When the hurricane began, the fleet were about forty leagues distant from Louisbourg; but were driven in twelve hours within two miles of the rocks and breakers on that coast, when the wind providentially shifted. The ship Tilbury was wrecked upon the rocks, and half her crew drowned. Eleven ships were dismasted, others threw their guns overboard; and all returned in a very shattered condition to England, at a very unfavourable season of the year. In this manner ended the expedition to Louisbourg, more unfortunate to the nation than the preceding designs upon Rochefort; less disgraceful to the commanders, but equally the occasion of ridicule and triumph to our enemies. Indeed, the unhappy consequences of the political disputes at home, the instability of the administration, and the frequent revolutions in our councils, were strongly manifested by that langour infused into all our military operations, and general unsteadiness in our pursuits. Faction, in the mother-country, produced divisions and misconduct in the colonies. No ambition to signalize themselves appeared among the officers, from the uncertainty whether their services were to be rewarded or condemned. Their attachment to particular persons weakened the love they ought to have entertained for their country in general, and destroyed that spirit of enterprise, that firmness and resolution which constitutes the commander, and without which the best capacity, joined to the most uncorruptible integrity, can effect nothing.
The French king not only exerted himself against the English in America, but even extended his operations to their settlements in Africa, where he sent one of his naval commanders with a small squadron, to reduce. This gentleman, whose name was Kersin, had scoured the coast of Guinea, and made prize of several English trading ships; but his chief aim was to reduce the castle at Cape-coast, of which, had he gained possession, the other subordinate forts would have submitted without opposition. When Mr. Bell, the governor of this castle, received intelligence that M. de Kersin was a few leagues to windward, and certainly intended to attack Cape-coast, his whole garrison did not exceed thirty white men, exclusive of a few mulatto soldiers: his stock of ammunition was reduced to half a barrel of gunpowder; and his fortifications were so crazy and inconsiderable, that, in the opinion of the best engineers, they could not have sustained for twenty minutes the fire of one great ship, had it been properly directed and maintained. In these circumstances, few people would have dreamed of making any preparation for defence; but Mr. Bell entertained other sentiments, and acquitted himself with equal courage and discretion. He forthwith procured a supply of gunpowder, and a reinforcement of about fifty men, from certain trading vessels that happened to be upon that part of the coast. He mounted some spare cannon upon an occasional battery, and assembling a body of twelve hundred negroes, well armed, under the command of their chief, on whose attachment he could depend, and ordered them to take post at the place where he apprehended the enemy would attempt a landing. These precautions were hardly taken, when the French squadron, consisting of two ships of the line and a large frigate, appeared, and in a little time their attack began; but they met with such a warm reception, that in less than two hours they desisted, leaving the castle very little damaged, and immediately made sail for the West Indies, very much to the disappointment and mortification of the Dutch officers belonging to the fort of Elmina, in the same neighbourhood, who made no scruple of expressing their wishes publicly in favour of the French commodore, and at a distance viewed the engagement with the most partial eagerness and impatience. M. de Kersin was generally blamed for his want of conduct and resolution in this attempt; but he is said to have been deceived in his opinion of the real state of Capecoast castle, by the vigorous and resolute exertions of the governor, and was apprehensive of losing a mast in the engagement; a loss which he could not have repaired on the whole coast of Africa. Had the fort of Cape-coast been reduced on this occasion, in all probability every petty republic of the negroes, settled under the protection of the forts on the Gold-coast, would have revolted from the British interest; for while the French squadron, in their progress along-shore, hovered in the offing at Annamaboe, an English settlement a few leauges to leeward of Cape-coast, John Corrantee, the caboceiro, chief magistrate and general of the blacks on that part of the coast, whose adopted son had a few years before been caressed, and even treated as a prince in England, taking it for granted that this enterprise of the French would be attended with success, actually sent some of his dependants, with a present of refreshments for their commodore; the delivery of which, however, was prevented by Mr. Brew, the English chief of the fort, who shattered in pieces the canoe before it could be launched, and threatened with his cannon to level the black town with the dust. The caboceiro, though thus anticipated in his design, resolved to be among the first who should compliment M. de Kersin on his victory at Cape-coast; and, with this view, prepared an embassy or deputation to go there by land; but understanding that the French had failed in their attempt, he shifted his design, without the least hesitation, and despatched the same embassy to Mr. Bell, whom he congratulated on his victory, assuring him he had kept his men ready armed, to march at the first summons to his assistance.
GEORGE II. 1727-1760