ams and entreaties of the
women, of whom there were more than a hundred in the place. There was a
council of officers, and then the white flag was raised. Bougainville
went to propose terms of capitulation. "The cries, threats, and hideous
howling of our Canadians and Indians," says Vaudreuil, "made them
quickly decide." "This," observes the Reverend Father Claude Godefroy
Cocquard, "reminds me of the fall of Jericho before the shouts of the
Israelites." The English surrendered prisoners of war, to the number,
according to the Governor, of sixteen hundred,[432] which included the
sailors, laborers, and women. The Canadians and Indians broke through
all restraint, and fell to plundering. There was an opening of
rum-barrels and a scene of drunkenness, in which some of the prisoners
had their share; while others tried to escape in the confusion, and were
tomahawked by the excited savages. Many more would have been butchered,
but for the efforts of Montcalm, who by unstinted promises succeeded in
appeasing his ferocious allies, whom he dared not offend. "It will cost
the King," he says, "eight or ten thousand livres in presents."[433]

[Footnote 432: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 20 Aout, 1756_. He elsewhere
makes the number somewhat greater. That the garrison, exclusive of
civilians, did not exceed at the utmost fourteen hundred, is shown by
_Shirley to Loudon, 5 Sept. 1756_. Loudon had charged Shirley with
leaving Oswego weakly garrisoned; and Shirley replies by alleging that
the troops there were in the number as above. It was of course his
interest to make them appear as numerous as possible. In the printed
_Conduct of Major-General Shirley briefly stated_, they are put at only
ten hundred and fifty.]

[Footnote 433: Several English writers say, however, that fifteen or
twenty young men were given up to the Indians to be adopted in place of
warriors lately killed.]

The loss on both sides is variously given. By the most trustworthy
accounts, that of the English did not reach fifty killed, and that of
the French was still less. In the forts and vessels were found above a
hundred pieces of artillery, most of them swivels and other light guns,
with a large quantity of powder, shot, and shell. The victors burned the
forts and the vessels on the stocks, destroyed such provisions and
stores as they could not carry away, and made the place a desert. The
priest Piquet, who had joined the expedition, planted amid the ruin a
tall cr