d dug up and scalped the corpses in the graveyard of
Fort William Henry, many of which were remains of victims of the
small-pox; and the savages caught the disease, which is said to have
made great havoc among them.[532]

[Footnote 531: "En chemin faisant et meme en entrant a Montreal ils les
ont manges et fait manger aux autres prisonniers." _Bigot au Ministre,
24 Aout, 1757._

"Des sauvages out fait manger aux meres la chair de leurs enfants."
_Jugement impartial sur les Operations militaires en Canada_. A French
diary kept in Canada at this time, and captured at sea, is cited by
Hutchinson as containing similar statements.]

[Footnote 532: One of these corpses was that of Richard Rogers, brother
of the noted partisan Robert Rogers. He had died of small-pox some time
before. Rogers, _Journals_, 55, _note_.]

Vaudreuil, in reporting what he calls "my capture of Fort William
Henry," takes great credit to himself for his "generous procedures"
towards the English prisoners; alluding, it seems, to his having bought
some of them from the Indians with the brandy which was sure to cause
the murder of others.[533] His obsequiousness to his red allies did not
cease with permitting them to kill and devour before his eyes those whom
he was bound in honor and duty to protect. "He let them do what they
pleased," says a French contemporary; "they were seen roaming about
Montreal, knife in hand, threatening everybody, and often insulting
those they met. When complaint was made, he said nothing. Far from it;
instead of reproaching them, he loaded them with gifts, in the belief
that their cruelty would then relent."[534]

[Footnote 533: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 15 Sept. 1757._]

[Footnote 534: _Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760._]

Nevertheless, in about a fortnight all, or nearly all, the surviving
prisoners were bought out of their clutches; and then, after a final
distribution of presents and a grand debauch at La Chine, the whole
savage rout paddled for their villages.

The campaign closed in November with a partisan exploit on the Mohawk.
Here, at a place called German Flats, on the farthest frontier, there
was a thriving settlement of German peasants from the Palatinate, who
were so ill-disposed towards the English that Vaudreuil had had good
hope of stirring them to revolt, while at the same time persuading their
neighbors, the Oneida Indians, to take part with France.[535] As his
measures to this end failed, he resolved