at the object of this murderous warfare was to punish the
English till they longed for peace.[449]

[Footnote 449: _Depeches de Vaudreuil, 1756._]

The waters and mountains of Lake George, and not the western borders,
were the chief centre of partisan war. Ticonderoga was a hornet's nest,
pouring out swarms of savages to infest the highways and byways of the
wilderness. The English at Fort William Henry, having few Indians, could
not retort in kind; but they kept their scouts and rangers in active
movement. What they most coveted was prisoners, as sources of
information. One Kennedy, a lieutenant of provincials, with five
followers, white and red, made a march of rare audacity, passed all the
French posts, took a scalp and two prisoners on the Richelieu, and
burned a magazine of provisions between Montreal and St. John. The party
were near famishing on the way back; and Kennedy was brought into Fort
William Henry in a state of temporary insanity from starvation.[450]
Other provincial officers, Peabody, Hazen, Waterbury, and Miller, won a
certain distinction in this adventurous service, though few were so
conspicuous as the blunt and sturdy Israel Putnam. Winslow writes in
October that he has just returned from the best "scout" yet made, and
that, being a man of strict truth, he may be entirely trusted.[451]
Putnam had gone with six followers down Lake George in a whale-boat to a
point on the east side, opposite the present village of Hague, hid the
boat, crossed northeasterly to Lake Champlain, three miles from the
French fort, climbed the mountain that overlooks it, and made a complete
reconnoissance; then approached it, chased three Frenchmen, who escaped
within the lines, climbed the mountain again, and moving westward along
the ridge, made a minute survey of every outpost between the fort and
Lake George.[452] These adventures were not always fortunate. On the
nineteenth of September Captain Hodges and fifty men were ambushed a few
miles from Fort William Henry by thrice their number of Canadians and
Indians, and only six escaped. Thus the record stands in the _Letter
Book_ of Winslow.[453] By visiting the encampments of Ticonderoga, one
may learn how the blow was struck.

[Footnote 450: _Minute of Lieutenant Kennedy's Scout. Winslow to Loudon,
20 Sept. 1756._]

[Footnote 451: _Winslow to Loudon, 16 Oct. 1756._]

[Footnote 452: _Report of a Scout to Ticonderoga, Oct. 1756_, signed
Israel Putnam.]

[Footnote 4