the war-song at the prompting of Schuyler, they had
been but half-hearted in doing so; and even the Mohawks, nearest
neighbors and best friends of the English, sent word to their Canadian
kindred, the Caughnawagas, that they took up the hatchet only because
they could not help it.

The attack on Canada by way of the Hudson and Lake Champlain was to have
been commanded by Lord Lovelace or some officer of his choice; but as he
was dead, Ingoldsby, his successor in the government of the province,
jointly with the governors of several adjacent colonies who had met at
New York, appointed Colonel Nicholson in his stead.[129] Nicholson went
to Albany, whence, with about fifteen hundred men, he moved up the
Hudson, built a stockade fort opposite Saratoga, and another at the spot
known as the Great Carrying Place. This latter he called Fort
Nicholson,--a name which it afterwards exchanged for that of Fort
Lydius, and later still for that of Fort Edward, which the town that
occupies the site owns to this day.[130] Thence he cut a rough roadway
through the woods to where Wood Creek, choked with beaver dams, writhed
through flat green meadows, walled in by rock and forest. Here he built
another fort, which was afterwards rebuilt and named Fort Anne. Wood
Creek led to Lake Champlain, and Lake Champlain to Chambly and
Montreal,--the objective points of the expedition. All was astir at the
camp. Flat-boats and canoes were made, and stores brought up from
Albany, till everything was ready for an advance the moment word should
come that the British fleet had reached Boston. Vetch, all impatience,
went thither to meet it, as if his presence could hasten its arrival.

Reports of Nicholson's march to Wood Creek had reached Canada, and
Vaudreuil sent Ramesay, governor of Montreal, with fifteen hundred
troops, Canadians, and Indians, to surprise his camp. Ramesay's fleet of
canoes had reached Lake Champlain, and was halfway to the mouth of Wood
Creek, when his advance party was discovered by English scouts, and the
French commander began to fear that he should be surprised in his turn;
in fact, some of his Indians were fired upon from an ambuscade. All was
now doubt, perplexity, and confusion. Ramesay landed at the narrows of
the lake, a little south of the place now called Crown Point. Here, in
the dense woods, his Indians fired on some Canadians whom they took for
English. This was near producing a panic. "Every tree seemed an enemy,"
wri