hnson
himself lay wounded.

All that night Iroquois kept breaking past the guard into the tent.

"What do they want?" asked Dieskau feebly.

"To skin you and eat you," returned Johnson laconically. Whose was the
victory? The losses had been about even,--two hundred and fifty on
each side. Johnson had failed to advance to Crown Point, but Dieskau
had failed to dislodge Johnson. If Dieskau had not been captured, it
is a question if either side would have considered the fight a victory.
As it was, New France was plunged in grief; joy bells rang in New
England. Johnson was given a baronetcy and 5000 pounds for his
victory. He had named the lake south of Lake Champlain after the
English King, Lake George.

So closed the first act in the tragic struggle for supremacy in America.

{241}

CHAPTER XII

FROM 1756 TO 1763

Bigot at Quebec--New France on verge of ruin--Bigot's vampires suck
country's lifeblood--Scene on lake--Massacre at Fort William
Henry--Louisburg besieged--Surrender of famous fort--The attack at
Ticonderoga--Abercrombie's forces flee--Wolfe sails for Quebec--Signal
fires forewarn approach of enemy--Both sides become scalp
raiders--English fail at Montmorency--Slip silently down the great
river--The two armies face each other--Death of Montcalm--Why New
France fell

How stand both sides at the opening of the year 1756, on the verge of
the Seven Years' War,--the struggle for a continent?

There has been open war for more than a year, but war is not formally
declared till May 18, 1756.

Take Acadia first.

The French have been expelled. The infamous Le Loutre is still in
prison in England, and when he is released, in 1763, he toils till his
death, in 1773, trying to settle the Acadian refugees on some of the
French islands of the English Channel. The smiling farms of Grand Pre
and Port Royal lie a howling waste. Only a small English garrison
holds Annapolis, where long ago Marc L'Escarbot and Champlain held
happy revel; and the seat of government has been transferred to
Halifax, now a settlement and fort of some five thousand people. So
much for the English. Across a narrow arm of the sea is Isle Royal or
Cape Breton, where the French are intrenched as at a second Gibraltar
in the fortress of Louisburg. Since the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
restored the fort to the French, millions have been spent strengthening
its walls, adding to the armaments; but Intendant Bigot has had charg