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There was mutual hand-shaking between Major Small and Colonel Putnam, who had fought side by side under the walls of Ticonderoga and at Fort Edward. "And so you are here to enforce the Regulation Act," said Putnam. "It is because you are rebellious," Small replied. "You are attempting to subvert our liberties by enforcing unrighteous laws.
The army followed in such order as it might, crossed the bridge in hot haste, passed under the northern rampart of Quebec, entered at the Palace Gate, and pressed on in headlong march along the quaint narrow streets of the warlike town: troops of Indians in scalp-locks and war-paint, a savage glitter in their deep-set eyes; bands of Canadians whose all was at stake, faith, country, and home; the colony regulars; the battalions of Old France, a torrent of white uniforms and gleaming bayonets, La Sarre, Languedoc, Roussillon, Béarn, victors of Oswego, William Henry, and Ticonderoga.
I viewed Ticonderoga as a place of ancient strength, in ruins for half a century: where the flags of three nations had successively waved, and none waved now; where armies had struggled, so long ago that the bones of the slain were mouldered; where Peace had found a heritage in the forsaken haunts of War.
The British general then advanced upon Ticonderoga, but suddenly made up his mind that the season was too late for operations in that latitude. The resistance he had encountered seems to have made him despair of achieving any speedy success in that quarter, and on the 3d of November he started back for Canada.
He had served the colonial cause in many ways, and at the outbreak of the Revolution had been one of its hopes and props. But brilliant as his exploits had been, the intrigues of Gates, after the fall of Ticonderoga, had been successful, and he was deprived of the army of the North before the battle of Saratoga.
These successes led the British to think that within a few days they would be in Albany. We have an amusing picture of the effect on George III of the fall of Fort Ticonderoga. The place had been much discussed.
When the news arrived at Paris of the capture of Ticonderoga, and of the victorious march of Burgoyne towards Albany, events which seemed decisive in favour of the English, instructions had been immediately despatched to Nantz, and the other ports of the kingdom, that no American privateers should be suffered to enter them, except from indispensable necessity, as to repair their vessels, to obtain provisions, or to escape the perils of the sea.
'Tis God the triumph wrought." But for Robert the night that closed down was the blackest he had ever known. It had never occurred to him that Abercrombie's army could be defeated. Confident in its overwhelming numbers, he had believed that it would easily sweep away the French and take Ticonderoga. The skill and valor of Montcalm, St.
Brigadier Prideaux was charged with this stroke; Brigadier Stanwix was sent to conduct the operations for the relief of Pittsburg; and Amherst himself prepared to lead the grand central advance against Ticonderoga, Crown Point, and Montreal. Towards the end of June he reached that valley by the head of Lake George which for five years past had been the annual mustering-place of armies.
They waited long enough to let Montcalm get ready to meet their infantry; but not long enough to get their guns ready to meet him. Now, too, blundering Abercromby believed a stupid engineer who said the trenches could be rushed with the bayonet precisely what could not be done. The peninsula of Ticonderoga was strong towards Lake Champlain, the narrows of which it entirely commanded.
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