Their Alliance with the French

The earl was ready for his eastern campaign late in June. Having exasperated the people of the whole country by impressing into the British service, at New York, four hundred men, he sailed from that port with a considerable force, and arrived at Halifax on the 30th of the month. There he was joined by ships under Admiral Holborne and six thousand troops commanded by George Viscount Howe. On the 9th of July he assembled his whole armament, composed of ten thousand soldiers, sixteen ships of the line, and several frigates and transports. It was supposed that an immediate attack upon Louisburg was intended, but the hope was delusive. The troops were landed. They were made to level the uneven ground for a parade; and for almost a month they were employed in the cultivation of a vegetable garden and exercises in sham fights and sieges. The army was dispirited, and the patience of the officers was exhausted. Major-General Lord Charles Hay could no longer repress expressions of his indignation. One day while he was sitting under a tree near the seashore, discussing army matters with some fellow-officers, he sprang to his feet, and blazing with indignation, he said, as he pointed toward a noble ship lying near, and to the idle camp not far off, "See how the power of England is held in chains by imbecility! Her substance is wasted by indecision! With such ships and such men as we have here, led by an energetic and competent commander, Cape Breton and its fortress, and all this eastern region, might have been a part of the British empire a month ago." For these brave words, his lordship was arrested, sent to England and tried by court-martial, and was acquitted. At that trial, there was a tragical event. The President of the Board, while putting a question to Lord Hay, fell from his seat in an apoplectic fit, and died.

Stung by Lord Hay's remarks, Loudon bustled about a few days and embarked his troops as if for Louisburg. During the delay at Halifax, that fortress had been reinforced, and ships had been added to the French fleet there. A reconnoitering vessel brought word to the earl that his enemy had one more ship than he; so his lordship abandoned the expedition and sailed for New York. The army was amazed and thoroughly disgusted. On the 10th of August, when the fleet had voyaged westward only two days, an express sloop was met. A messenger from her came in haste to Lord Loudon with a despatch, telling him that the French, in large numbers, had closely invested Fort William Henry, on Lake George. The earl immediately sent orders back for troops that he had left behind, to follow him to New York. When he arrived there at near the close of August, he was met with the news that the French were in possession of Fort William Henry and all northern New York. The province was trembling with alarm. That alarm was intensified fourfold when the stupid and stubborn earl proposed to encamp his forces on Long Island for the defence of the continent!

For more than a year the English in America had acted so much "like women" that the Indians were disgusted. They admired the different spirit of the French, and warriors from more than thirty "nations" were at Montreal at the beginning of the summer of 1757. Governor Vaudreuil told them of glory and plunder surely to be won by alliance with the French. Montcalm danced their wild war-dances with them; he sung their fierce war-songs with them, until their affection for him and enthusiasm for the cause of the French became intense, and they were ready to follow wherever that general might lead. He commanded them to meet his regulars and Canadians at St. Johns on the Sorel, for a voyage over the Lake. They went, in a wild, tumultuous march for Montreal, accompanied by priests who chanted hymns and anthems in almost every Indian dialect. In canoes and bateaux the motley army, led by Montcalm, went up Lake Champlain and landed at Ticonderoga. It was hot July. Under a wide-spreading oak high mass was celebrated, and voices chanting sacred hymns were mingled with the martial music of French instruments. Scouts were sent out and returned with prisoners and scalps. When Marin, who had destroyed the hamlet of Saratoga a dozen years before, came back from the hills near Fort Edward, and pointed to his canoe moored at the shore, in which lay a solitary prisoner and more than forty scalps, the savages set up a yell of exultation that awakened the echoes of Mount Defiance and Mount Independence, then bearing Algonquin names. Very soon the whole body of Montcalm's force moved to the foot of Lake George, for their destination was Fort William Henry, at the head of the Lake. "His sailing," wrote Malartie from Montreal, when Loudon departed for Halifax, "is a hint for us to project something on this frontier." The expedition against Fort William Henry was the result of that hint.