[1148] Marshall’s Washington, i. 327.
[1149] There seems to be some question if any massacre really took place. (Cf. Stone’s Johnson, ii. p. 23.)
[1150] Referring to the fall of Oswego, Smith (New York, ii. 236) says: “The panic was universal, and from this moment it was manifest that nothing could be expected from all the mighty preparations for the campaign.”
[1151] Parkman (i. p. 440) notes the sources of this commotion.
[1152] Loudon had to this end held meetings with the northern governors at Boston in January, and with the southern governors at Philadelphia in March, 1757. Loudon’s correspondence at this time is in the Public Record Office (America and West Indies, vol. lxxxv.), and is copied in the Parkman MSS. When Loudon left with his 91 transports and five men-of-war, he sent off a despatch-boat to England; and Jenkinson, on the receipt of the message, wrote to Grenville, reflecting probably Loudon’s reports, that “the public seem to be extremely pleased with the secrecy and spirit of this enterprise.” Grenville Corresp., i. 201.
[1153] Bancroft and those who follow him, taking their cue from Smith (Hist. of New York), say that Loudon “proposed to encamp on Long Island for the defence of the continent.” Parkman (ii. p. 2) points out that this is Smith’s perversion of a statement of Loudon that he should disembark on that island if head winds prevented his entering New York bay, when he returned from Halifax. There seems to have been a current apprehension of a certain ridiculousness in all of Loudon’s movements. It induced John Adams to believe even then that the colonies could get on better without England than with her. Cf. the John Adams and Mercy Warren Letters (Mass. Hist. Soc. Collections), p. 339.
[1154] Plans of the fort and settlement at Schenectady during the war are in Jonathan Pearson’s Schenectady Patent (1883), pp. 311, 316, 328: namely, one of the fort, by the Rev. John Miller (1695), from an original in the British Museum; another of the town (about 1750-60); and still another (1768).
[1155] Chapter vii.
[1156] Hutchinson (iii. 71) represents that Howe, in the confusion, may have been killed by his own men. On Howe’s burial at Albany, and the identification of his remains many years after, see Lossing’s Schuyler, i. p. 155; Watson’s County of Essex, 88. He was buried under St. Peter’s Church. Cf. Lossing, in Harper’s Mag., xiv. 453.
[1157] Abercrombie’s engineer surveyed the French works from an opposite hill, and pronounced it practicable to carry them by assault. Stark, with a better knowledge of such works, demurred; but his opinions had no weight. A view of the field of Abercrombie’s defeat is given in Gay, Pop. Hist. U. S., iii. 299. M. D’Hagues sent to the Marshal de Belle Isle on account of the situation of Fort Carillon [Ticonderoga] and its approaches, dated at the fort, May 1, 1758, which is printed (in translation) in N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 707; and in the same, p. 720, is another description by M. de Pont le Roy, French engineer-in-chief.