Freke, for once in his life, had been employed to some purpose. He met us on the quay, and immediately conducted us to a gay little sloop, to which he had already transferred our luggage, and which was ready for a start down the lake to Plattsburgh. We were introduced to a raw-boned, barethroated Vermonter as “Captain Pusher,” and, ratifying the bargain of our commissary, were soon snugly on board his vessel; of which I regret that I forget the name, though I distinctly remember the letters that shone on the painted sterns we passed—such as the Macdonough, the Congress, the Green-Mountain-Boy, and the Lady of the Lake. Whatever was its name, its deck contained several baskets of vegetables and joints of meat, which gave us promise of a good dinner; and scarcely were we under weigh, before Sambo the cook began to pare turnips, and grin from ear to ear over savoury collops of mutton, which he was submitting to some incipient process of cookery.
We were favoured with a good breeze; but the channel of which I have spoken seemed to drag its length like an Alexandrine. We reached a place where it is so narrow, and makes an angle so abrupt, that there is a contrivance on the bank which steamers are obliged to employ in turning. It is best described by the name which has been given to it by the sailors, from
“A pigmy scraper wi’ his fiddle,
Wha used at tryste and fairs to driddle,
Wi’ hand on haunch, and upward e’e.”
They call it the Fiddler’s Elbow; and as it seems the limit of Whitehall, we were glad to double the cape as speedily as possible. A squadron of ducks that were puddling in the dirty water of the marshes gave point to a quotation from Voltaire, with which one of our company paid his parting compliments to Kaw-ko-kaw-na, as its author did to Holland—Adieu! canards, canailles, canaux.
After clearing this place, we found an object of interest in the decaying hulks of the two flotillas that came to an engagement in Plattsburgh bay, in the year 1814. The British and America galleys lay there rotting together, with many marks of the sharp action in which they had well borne their part. The more imposing proportions of Captain Downie’s flag-ship the Confiance arrested our particular attention. She was a sheer hulk, charred and begrimed by fire, and a verdant growth of grass was sprouting from her seams and honourable scars. A few years before, she was a gallant frigate, cruising upon the open lake, and bearing proudly in the fight the red-cross of St George. Her commander fell upon her deck in the first moment of the action; and after a fierce engagement, during which she received 105 round-shot in her hull, she was surrendered. There was something in the sight of these rival squadrons thus rotting side by side, that might have inspired a moralist. How many brave fellows that once trode their decks were likewise mouldering in the dust of death! But in another view of the matter there was something inspiring. They were a witness of peace between the two nations who hold Lake Champlain between them; and long may it be before either shall wish to recall them from the nothingness into which they have long since crumbled!
The lake becomes gradually wider, and though not remarkable for beauty, affords scenes to engage the eye and occupy the mind. It is rather river scenery, than what we naturally associate with lakes. On the left are the mountain ridges that divide its waters from those of Lake George; on the right, is the rocky boundary of Vermont. The lake occupies the whole defile, lying very nearly due north and south. As we approached Ticonderoga, the region became more mountainous, and the view was consequently more attractive. Before us on the east was Mount Independence, and just opposite, on the west, rose the bold height of Mount Defiance, completely covering the fortress, which we knew lurked behind it to the north. By the help of a good wind, we were not long in reaching the spot where the outlet of Lake George debouches. It comes into Lake Champlain, apparently from the north-west, at the foot of Mount Defiance; the lake making a bend and winding eastward; and between the lake and the outlet, on a sloping and partially wooded promontory of some hundred feet in height, rise the rough but picturesque ruins of Ticonderoga. They present an appearance not usual in American scenery; and having every charm of association which Indian, French, British, and patriotic warfare can throw around such places, are naturally enough endeared to Americans, and gratifying to the curiosity of travellers.
This fortress was originally built by the French, in 1756; and subsequently, until the ascent of Mount Defiance by Burgoyne proved its exposure to attack on that point, it was contested, captured, and recaptured, and held by French, English, and Americans, as a stronghold of mastery and power. It commanded the avenue to the Hudson, and the pass to Lake George. The name Ticonderoga, in which every ear must detect a significant beauty, is said to denote, in the Indian dialect, the noise of the cataracts in the outlet; but the French called the fort Carillon, and afterwards Vaudreuil, in honour of one of their governors in Acadie, the Marquis de Vaudreuil. In 1757, when Montcalm (who fell in the defence of Quebec two years afterwards) was making his expedition against the English forts on Lake George, he remained at this place awaiting that powerful reinforcement of savages, whose treachery and thirst for blood rendered the campaign so lamentably memorable. To one who stands, as I did, on that beautiful peninsula, and surveys the quiet scene of land and water—sails betokening civilised commerce, and a trading village in Vermont, exhibiting every mark of prosperous thrift—it seems incredible that within the lifetime of persons yet surviving, that very scene was alive with savage nations who called it their own, and gave it to whom they would; but of whom nothing remains but wild traditions, and the certainty that they have been. Yet, only forty-three years before British and American flotillas were contending for this lake, in sight of a village with spires, and with none other than civilised arts of war, the same waters were covered with two hundred canoes of Nipistingues, Abnakis, Amenekis, and Algonquins, paddling their way to the massacre of a British force in a fortress at the head of Lake George. From Father Roubaud, a Jesuit priest who accompanied them, the particulars of that expedition have been handed down. He describes the savages as bedaubed with green, yellow, and vermillion; adorned with glistening ornaments, the gifts of their allies; their heads shaven, saving their scalp-locks, which rose from their heads like crests, stiffened with tallow, and decorated with beads and feathers; their chiefs bedizened with finery, and each nation embarked under wild but appropriate ensigns. Such were the Christians with whom Father Roubaud travelled as chaplain, and whom he led against his fellow Christians like another Peter the Hermit pursuing Turks. It is the plague of Popery that it often expends itself in inspiring the deepest religious sentiment, without implanting the least religious principle. The Italian bandit kneels at a wayside crucifix, to praise God and the Virgin for the plunder he has taken with bloodshed; the Irish priest, at the altar, devotes to death his unoffending neighbours, with the very lips which, as he believes, have just enclosed the soul, body, and divinity of the world’s Redeemer; and the Jesuit missionary of New France had no scruple in consecrating with the most awful rites of religion, an expedition whose object was the scalps of baptised men, and whose results were the massacre of women and children. The holy father himself is particular to relate the fact that he celebrated a mass before the embarkation, for the express purpose of securing the Divine blessing, and he compliments the fervour with which the savages assisted at the solemnity! He had described the English to them as a race of blasphemers, and they, at least, were not to blame for embarking in the spirit of crusaders “against black Pagans, Turks, and Saracens.” Daily, for a whole week, as the armament advanced, did the wily Jesuit land them on one of the many isles that gem the lower waters of Lake Champlain, on purpose to renew the august sacrament of the altar before their eyes: and he describes these savages as chanting the praises of the Lamb of God, with a fervour from which he augured the consummation of their character as Christians. At the end of a week, they descried with joy the French lilies as they waved over the walls of Carillon; and in order to make their approach more imposing, they immediately arranged their canoes under their ensigns, and advanced in battle array. From the height on which I stood, Montcalm beheld his allies, on a bright July morning, their hatchets and tomahawks gleaming in the sun; their standards and scalp-locks fluttering in the breeze; and their thousand paddles hurrying them through the waves of that beautiful water: such a sight as no eye will ever see again. To a nobleman fresh from the gallantries of Versailles, it must have been a spectacle full of wild and romantic interest; and the picture is altogether such a one as any imagination may delight to reproduce. Yet, when we reflect that it is even now but fourscore years and ten since such a scene was a terrible reality, how striking the reflection that it has as absolutely vanished from the earth, beyond the possibility of revival, as the display of tournaments, and the more formidable pageants of the Crusades.
The following year an expedition against this fort was made by the gallant Abercrombie, who approached it from Lake George, and endeavoured to take it by storm. It is commonly said that Lord Howe fell in this assault before the walls; but in fact he fell the day before, while leading an advanced guard through the forest. Ticonderoga was garrisoned by about four thousand men—French, Canadians, and Indians—and their entrenchments were defended by almost impregnable outworks. The British troops nevertheless made the attack with the greatest intrepidity, and in spite of a murderous fire, forced their way to the walls, and even scaled them, to be immediately cut down. But after repeated assaults, and the loss of two thousand men, General Abercrombie was forced to desist from the attempt; and the French kept the post for a time. It of course became English in the following year, when the French power in America was destroyed by the taking of Quebec.