ok him in the gloom
for an Englishman, and shot him dead. Captain Pouchot, of the battalion
of Bearn, replaced him; and the attack was pushed vigorously. The
Canadians and Indians, swarming through the forest, fired all day on the
fort under cover of the trees. The second division came up with
twenty-two more cannon; and at night the first parallel was marked out
at a hundred and eighty yards from the rampart. Stumps were grubbed up,
fallen trunks shoved aside, and a trench dug, sheltered by fascines,
gabions, and a strong abattis.

Fort Ontario, counted as the best of the three forts at Oswego, stood on
a high plateau at the east or right side of the river where it entered
the lake. It was in the shape of a star, and was formed of trunks of
trees set upright in the ground, hewn flat on two sides, and closely
fitted together,--an excellent defence against musketry or swivels, but
worthless against cannon. The garrison, three hundred and seventy in
all, were the remnant of Pepperell's regiment, joined to raw recruits
lately sent up to fill the places of the sick and dead. They had eight
small cannon and a mortar, with which on the next day, Friday, the
thirteenth, they kept up a brisk fire till towards night; when, after
growing more rapid for a time, it ceased, and the fort showed no sign of
life. Not a cannon had yet opened on them from the trenches; but it was
certain that with the French artillery once in action, their wooden
rampart would be shivered to splinters. Hence it was that Colonel
Mercer, commandant at Oswego, thinking it better to lose the fort than
to lose both fort and garrison, signalled to them from across the river
to abandon their position and join him on the other side. Boats were
sent to bring them off; and they passed over unmolested, after spiking
their cannon and firing off their ammunition or throwing it into the
well.

The fate of Oswego was now sealed. The principal work, called Old
Oswego, or Fort Pepperell, stood at the mouth of the river on the west
side, nearly opposite Fort Ontario, and less than five hundred yards
distant from it. The trading-house, which formed the centre of the
place, was built of rough stone laid in clay, and the wall which
enclosed it was of the same materials; both would crumble in an instant
at the touch of a twelve-pound shot. Towards the west and south they had
been protected by an outer line of earthworks, mounted with cannon, and
forming an entrenched camp;