For the ruins of Crown Point, see Lossing, Field-Book of the Revolution, i. 150-152; Watson’s County of Essex, pp. 104, 112. These are a part, however, of the fort built by Amherst. Kalm describes the previous fort (Travels, London, 1771, ii. 207), and it is delineated in Mémoires sur les affaires du Canada, p. 53.
Amherst began to repair the works, with his army now succumbing somewhat to the weather,[1166] and was about advancing down the lake, when scouts brought in word that Bourlamaque had also abandoned Crown Point. So Amherst again advanced. He knew nothing of the progress Wolfe was making in his attack on Quebec by water, but he did know that it was a part of Pitt’s plan that success on Lake Champlain should inure to Wolfe’s advantage, and this could only be brought about by an active pursuit of the enemy down the lake. Amherst was, however, not a general of the impetuous kind, and believed beyond all else in securing his rear. So he began to build at Crown Point the new fort, whose massive ruins are still to be seen, and sent out parties to open communication with the Upper Hudson on the west and with the Connecticut River on the east.
The French, as he knew, were strongly posted at Isle-aux-Noix, in the river below the lake, and they had four armed vessels, which would render dangerous any advance on his part by boat. So Captain Loring, the English naval commander, was ordered to put an equal armament afloat for an escort to his flotilla.
Bourlamaque, meanwhile, was confident in his position, for he knew that, in addition to his own strength, Lévis had been sent up to Montreal with 800 men to succor him, if necessary, and all the militia about Montreal was alert.
Amherst, on his part, was anxious to know how the campaign was going with Wolfe. In August he sent a messenger with a letter by the circuitous route of the Kennebec, which Wolfe received in about a month, but it helped that general little to know of the building going on at Crown Point. Amherst then tried to pass messengers through the Abenaki region, but they were seized. Upon this, Major Rogers was sent with his rangers to destroy the Indian village of St. Francis, which he did, and then, to elude parties endeavoring to cut him off, he retreated by Lake Memphremagog to Charlestown, on the Connecticut, enduring as he went the excruciating horrors of famine and exhaustion.
CROWN POINT, 1851.
From a sketch made in 1851, showing in the foreground a slope of the embankment, with part of the ruins of the barracks, the lake beyond, looking to the north.