lso tried to hire twenty thousand
Russians of Empress Catharine, but she gave him to understand that her
soldiers would be better employed. There was good material among the
Germans, many of whom had served with credit under the Great Frederick;
but the British showed them little favor as comrades, while the
Americans looked upon them as paid assassins. Not one in twenty knew any
English, so that misconception of orders was not unfrequent, though
orders were usually transmitted from headquarters in French. A jealousy
also grew up out of the belief that Burgoyne gave the Germans the
hardest duty, and the British the most praise. At Hubbardton, and on the
19th of September, the Germans saved him from defeat, yet he
ungenerously, we think, lays the disaster of October 7th chiefly at
their door.

[16] INDIANS AND IRREGULARS. It is impossible to give the number of
these accurately, as it was constantly fluctuating. Though Burgoyne
started with only four hundred Indians, the number was increased by five
hundred at Skenesborough, and he was later joined by some of the Mohawks
from St. Leger's force. In like manner, his two hundred and fifty
Canadians and Provincials had grown to more than six hundred of the
latter before he left Skenesborough. Most of these recruits came from
the Vermont settlements. They were put to work clearing the roads,
scouting, getting forward the supplies, collecting cattle, etc. Their
knowledge of the country was greatly serviceable to Burgoyne. In the
returns given of Burgoyne's _regular troops_, only the rank and file are
accounted for. Staff and line officers would swell the number
considerably.

III.

THE FALL OF TICONDEROGA.

(_July 5, 1777._)

A hundred years ago, the shores of Lake Champlain were for the most part
a wilderness. What few settlements did exist were mostly grouped about
the southeast corner of the lake, into which emigration had naturally
flowed from the older New England States. And even these were but feeble
plantations,[17] separated from the Connecticut valley by lofty
mountains, over which one rough road led the way.

Burgoyne's companions in arms have told us of the herds of red deer seen
quietly browsing on the hillsides; of the flocks of pigeons, darkening
the air in their flight; and of the store of pike, bass, and maskelonge
with which the waters of the lake abounded. At one encampment the
soldiers lived a whole day on the pigeons they had knocked off the