In the Paris documents as gathered (copies) in the archives at Albany,[1431] and in the copies of other documents from France, supplementing these, and contained in the series of MSS. given by Mr. Parkman to the Mass. Historical Society, there are the Journal of Bougainville, “a document,” says Parkman, “hardly to be commended too much,” the diary of Malartic, the correspondence of Montcalm, Lévis, Vaudreuil, and Bigot. In adding to the graphic details of the theme, there is a long letter of the Jesuit Roubaud, which is printed in the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses.[1432]
Jonathan Carver, who was a looker-on, has given an account in his Travels, which Parkman thinks is trustworthy so far as events came under Carver’s eye.[1433]
The journals of the Montresors, father and son, Colonels James and John, during their stay in 1757-59 in the neighborhood of Forts William Henry and Edward, throw light upon the spirit of the time.[1434] They are preserved in the family in England, and, edited by G. D. Scull, have been printed in the N. Y. Hist. Coll., 1881, accompanied by heliotypes of portraits of the two engineers.[1435]
Living at the time, and enjoying good advantages for acquiring knowledge, Hutchinson, in his Massachusetts (vol. iii. p. 60), might have given us more than he does, but his purpose was mainly to show the effect of the campaign upon that colony. It is noticeable, however, that he says the victims of the massacre were not many in number. Most later writers on the English side add little or nothing not elsewhere obtainable.[1436]
Bancroft[1437] made use of a considerable part of the material available to Parkman; but his latest revision does not add to his earlier account.
Dwight, in his Travels in New England and New York,[1438] who remembered the event as a child, expresses the view which long prevailed in New England, that Montcalm made no reasonable effort to check the Indians, and emphasizes the timidity and imbecility of Webb, who lay at Fort Edward with 6,000 men, doing nothing. Dwight narrates as from Captain Noble, who was present, that when Sir William Johnson would gather volunteers from Webb’s garrison to proceed to Munro’s assistance Webb forbade it.[1439]
Respecting the attack in the autumn (Nov. 28, 1757) on German Flats, there are the despatches of Vaudreuil, the Journal of Bougainville, and papers in Doc. Hist. N. Y., i. 520, and N. Y. Col. Docs., x. 672, the latter being a French summary of M. de Belêtre’s campaign. Loudon’s despatch to Pitt, Feb. 14, 1758, is the main English source.[1440]
While Webb held the chief command at Albany, Stanwix was organizing, with the help of Washington, the defence along the Pennsylvania and Virginia borders, and Bouquet further south.[1441] The lives of Washington and the histories of those provinces trace out the events of the summer in that direction. The main thread of this history is the precarious relation of the provinces with the Indians, and much illustrative of this connection is found in the Penna. Col. Rec., vol. vii. Dr. Schweinitz’s Life of Zeisberger and the various Moravian chronicles show how that people strove to act as intermediaries.
The Delawares had not forgotten the deceit practised upon them at Albany in 1754, in inveigling them into giving a deed of lands, and Sir William Johnson was known to be in favor of revoking that fraudulent purchase. Conferences with the Indians were numerous, even after the spring opened.[1442] Johnson received the deputies of the Shawanese and Delawares at Fort Johnson in April, and concluded a treaty with them.[1443]