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As there were only some fifty or sixty regulars in Montreal, General Carleton was unable to defend that town, and, upon the news of the fall of St. John's, he at once retired to Quebec, and Montreal was occupied by the Americans. In the meantime another expedition had been dispatched by the Americans under Arnold.
The second was that against the French forts on Lakes George and Champlain. At the beginning of July, Abercrombie was encamped on the borders of Lake George, with between six and seven thousand regulars, and upwards of nine thousand provincials, from New England, New York, and New Jersey.
Besides this show of foot-soldiers that is, regulars and irregulars of the Cornwallis Regiment, and men of the Defenders and the Peep-o'-Day Boys there were little groups of cavalry making their way to the parade-ground, the castle, the barracks, or the courts. Beyond these there was the jaunting-car trundling over the rough cobblestone street, or bumping in and out of dangerous holes.
The regulars were certainly not ideal troops with which to oppose such foes; but they were the best attainable at that time. They possessed traits which were lacking in even the best of the frontier militia; and most of the militia fell far short of the best.
The cumbrous organisation of Grand Divisions was abolished. Disloyal and unsuccessful generals were removed. Salutary changes were introduced into the various departments of the staff. The cavalry, hitherto formed in independent brigades, was consolidated into a corps of three divisions and a brigade of regulars, and under a system of careful and uniform inspection made rapid improvement.
On both sides novel defences were employed, cotton bales by the Americans, barrels of sugar by the British. The bales quickly caught fire, and from that time were discarded; the barrels proved as useless as if they had been empty. The result of the action would have been utterly surprising but for the discovery already made in Canada that Americans were better marksmen than British regulars.
Some desultory fighting ensued which achieved no end, and was chiefly remarkable for the excellent behaviour of the Colonials, who showed that they were the equals of the Regulars in gallantry and their superiors in the tactics which such a country requires.
So small was the military establishment of the States that in case of any future war, the army, as in Mexico, would be largely composed of volunteers; and, despite the high intelligence and warlike enthusiasm of the citizen battalions, it was evident that they were far less reliable than the regulars.
There was no affectation about Frank's delivery, but the first man on the list of the regulars found Merriwell's slow drop was a hard ball to hit. He went after two of them before he saw what he was getting. Then he made up his mind that he would get under the next one and knock the peeling off it.
"He doesn't know the strength of the Five Nations. He thinks they would all flee before our regulars just as the Senecas did. Worse than that, he doesn't know the Indian temperament. I'm afraid you can't make him understand that to satisfy their hunger for revenge will serve better than a score of orations and treaties." "You think he won't touch La Grange?" "I am almost certain of it."
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