bands. With
their aid the engineer, Descombles, reconnoitred the English forts, and
came back with the report that success was certain.[427] It was but a
confirmation of what had already been learned from deserters and
prisoners, who declared that the main fort was but a loopholed wall held
by six or seven hundred men, ill fed, discontented, and mutinous.[428]
Others said that they had been driven to desert by the want of good
food, and that within a year twelve hundred men had died of disease at
Oswego.[429]

[Footnote 427: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 4 Aout, 1756. Vaudreuil a
Bourlamaque, Juin, 1756_.]

[Footnote 428: Bougainville, _Journal_.]

[Footnote 429: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 10 Juillet, 1756. Resume des
Nouvelles du Canada, Sept. 1756_.]

The battalions of La Sarre, Guienne, and Bearn, with the colony
regulars, a body of Canadians, and about two hundred and fifty Indians,
were destined for the enterprise. The whole force was a little above
three thousand, abundantly supplied with artillery. La Sarre and Guienne
were already at Fort Frontenac. Bearn was at Niagara, whence it arrived
in a few days, much buffeted by the storms of Lake Ontario. On the
fourth of August all was ready. Montcalm embarked at night with the
first division, crossed in darkness to Wolf Island, lay there hidden all
day, and embarking again in the evening, joined Rigaud at Niaoure Bay at
seven o'clock in the morning of the sixth. The second division followed,
with provisions, hospital train, and eighty artillery boats; and on the
eighth all were united at the bay. On the ninth Rigaud, covered by the
universal forest, marched in advance to protect the landing of the
troops. Montcalm followed with the first division; and, coasting the
shore in bateaux, landed at midnight of the tenth within half a league
of the first English fort. Four cannon were planted in battery upon the
strand, and the men bivouacked by their boats. So skilful were the
assailants and so careless the assailed that the English knew nothing of
their danger, till in the morning, a reconnoitring canoe discovered the
invaders. Two armed vessels soon came to cannonade them; but their light
guns were no match for the heavy artillery of the French, and they were
forced to keep the offing.

Descombles, the engineer, went before dawn to reconnoitre the fort, with
several other officers and a party of Indians. While he was thus
employed, one of these savages, hungry for scalps, to