Precis des Evenements de la Campagne de 1757 en la
Nouvelle France._]

Fort William Henry was an irregular bastioned square, formed by
embankments of gravel surmounted by a rampart of heavy logs, laid in
tiers crossed one upon another, the interstices filled with earth. The
lake protected it on the north, the marsh on the east, and ditches with
_chevaux-de-frise_ on the south and west. Seventeen cannon, great and
small, besides several mortars and swivels, were mounted upon it;[510]
and a brave Scotch veteran, Lieutenant-Colonel Monro, of the
thirty-fifth regiment, was in command.

[Footnote 510: _Etat des Effets et Munitions de Guerre qui se sont
trouves au Fort Guillaume-Henri._ There were six more guns in the
entrenched camp.]

General Webb lay fourteen miles distant at Fort Edward, with twenty-six
hundred men, chiefly provincials. On the twenty-fifth of July he had
made a visit to Fort William Henry, examined the place, given some
orders, and returned on the twenty-ninth. He then wrote to the Governor
of New York, telling him that the French were certainly coming, begging
him to send up the militia, and saying: "I am determined to march to
Fort William Henry with the whole army under my command as soon as I
shall hear of the farther approach of the enemy." Instead of doing so he
waited three days, and then sent up a detachment of two hundred regulars
under Lieutenant-Colonel Young, and eight hundred Massachusetts men
under Colonel Frye. This raised the force at the lake to two thousand
and two hundred, including sailors and mechanics, and reduced that of
Webb to sixteen hundred, besides half as many more distributed at Albany
and the intervening forts.[511] If, according to his spirited intention,
he should go to the rescue of Monro, he must leave some of his troops
behind him to protect the lower posts from a possible French inroad by
way of South Bay. Thus his power of aiding Monro was slight, so rashly
had Loudon, intent on Louisburg, left this frontier open to attack. The
defect, however, was as much in Webb himself as in his resources. His
conduct in the past year had raised doubts of his personal courage; and
this was the moment for answering them. Great as was the disparity of
numbers, the emergency would have justified an attempt to save Monro at
any risk. That officer sent him a hasty note, written at nine o'clock on
the morning of the third, telling him that the French were in sight on
the lake; and, in