in
equipping them. Overcoats, blankets, bear-skins to sleep on, tarpaulins
to sleep under, spare moccasons, spare mittens, kettles, axes, needles,
awls, flint and steel, and many miscellaneous articles were provided, to
be dragged by the men on light Indian sledges, along with provisions for
twelve days. The cost of the expedition is set at a million francs,
answering to more than as many dollars of the present time. To the
disgust of the officers from France, the Governor named his brother
Rigaud for the chief command; and before the end of February the whole
party was on its march along the ice of Lake Champlain. They rested
nearly a week at Ticonderoga, where no less than three hundred short
scaling-ladders, so constructed that two or more could be joined in one,
had been made for them; and here, too, they received a reinforcement,
which raised their number to sixteen hundred. Then, marching three days
along Lake George, they neared the fort on the evening of the
eighteenth, and prepared for a general assault before daybreak.

The garrison, including rangers, consisted of three hundred and
forty-six effective men.[470] The fort was not strong, and a resolute
assault by numbers so superior must, it seems, have overpowered the
defenders; but the Canadians and Indians who composed most of the
attacking force were not suited for such work; and, disappointed in his
hope of a surprise, Rigaud withdrew them at daybreak, after trying in
vain to burn the buildings outside. A few hours after, the whole body
reappeared, filing off to surround the fort, on which they kept up a
brisk but harmless fire of musketry. In the night they were heard again
on the ice, approaching as if for an assault; and the cannon, firing
towards the sound, again drove them back. There was silence for a while,
till tongues of flame lighted up the gloom, and two sloops, ice-bound in
the lake, and a large number of bateaux on the shore were seen to be on
fire. A party sallied to save them; but it was too late. In the morning
they were all consumed, and the enemy had vanished.

[Footnote 470: _Strength of the Garrison of Fort William Henry when the
Enemy came before it_, enclosed in the letter of _Major Eyre to Loudon,
26 March, 1757_. There were also one hundred and twenty-eight invalids.]

It was Sunday, the twentieth. Everything was quiet till noon, when the
French filed out of the woods and marched across the ice in procession,
ostentatiously carry