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The public were too strenuously employed with their own follies to be assiduous in estimating mine; so that many of my best attempts in this way have fallen victims to the transient topic of the times the Ghost in Cock Lane, or the Siege of Ticonderoga. "But, though they have passed pretty silently into the world, I can by no means complain of their circulation.
Then Dieskau moved on, with nearly all his force, to Carillon, or Ticonderoga, a promontory commanding both the routes by which alone Johnson could advance, that of Wood Creek and that of Lake George. The Indians allies were commanded by Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, the officer who had received Washington on his embassy to Fort Le Boeuf.
He had with him 30 Americans and was joined by 80 Canadians. Dazzled by the success which had attended the surprise of Ticonderoga, he thought to repeat the stroke by the conquest of Montreal. He crossed the river in the night about three miles below the city.
The French had concentrated all their men at Ticonderoga. McKinstry called out: "Look up the lake. Captain Jacob is in hot water. Those two birches that are being chased are his, certain." "Yes; he and his men are in those two, and there are seven birches after them. About thirty men. It's a pretty slim chance he's got. Now they're firing." Both parties were shooting at each other.
While the general superintended the repairs of Ticonderoga, and the men were employed in preparing batteaux and other vessels, his scouting parties hovered in the neighbourhood of Crown-Point, in order to watch the motions of the enemy. From one of these detachments he received intelligence, on the first day of August, that the enemy had retired from Crown-Point.
They marched eastward three miles through the dripping forest, til they reached the banks of Lake Champlain, near what is now called Five Mile Point, and presently saw a sledge, drawn by horses, moving on the ice from Ticonderoga towards Crown Point.
The Marquis, however, was for the moment engaged upon a letter pressing his interests with the Minister, and in which he was composing the sentence "Thus, my Lord, I find myself again in possession of the happy privilege of humbly recalling to you my services, resulting, with those of General Montcalm, in the great victories of Ticonderoga and Fort William Henry, and I "
Of those who had been with the army, many believed it their first duty to protect their families, and so went home. Numbers, who were on the way to Ticonderoga, turned back, on hearing that it was taken. To Burgoyne, these results were equal to a battle gained, since he was weakening the Americans, just as surely, in this way, with entire safety to himself.
Stark, Fritz, and Charles remained together, taking a certain path as agreed upon. They crept like Indians through the wood. Hardly the breaking of a branch betrayed their movements. In Charles's eyes the slumbering fire leaped into life. He always lived in the hope of again meeting his foe face to face. He knew that he was probably within the walls of Ticonderoga.
The British Fort Ticonderoga, on the neck of land separating Lake Champlain from Lake George, commanded the route from New York to Canada. The fight at Lexington in April had been quickly followed by aggressive action against this British stronghold.
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