-

"L'aumonier fit l'exhortation,
Puis il donnit l'absolution;
Aisement cela se peut croire.
Enfants, dit-il, animez-vous!
L'bon Dieu, sa mere, tout est pour vous.
_S--e! j'sommes catholiques. Les Anglois sont des heretiques._

"Ce sont des chiens; a coups d'pieds, a coups d'poings faut leur casser
la gueule et la machoire."

"Soldats, officiers, generaux,
Chacun en ce jour fut heros.
Aisement cela se peut croire.
Montcalm, comme defunt Annibal,
S'montroit soldat et general.
_S--e! sil y avoit quelqu'un qui ne l'aimit point!_"

"Je veux etre un chien; a coups d'pieds, a coups d'poings, j'lui
cass'rai la gueule et la machoire."

This is an allusion to Vaudreuil. On the battle of Ticonderoga, see
Appendix G]

Chapter 21

1758

Fort Frontenac

The rashness of Abercromby before the fight was matched by his
poltroonery after it. Such was his terror that on the evening of his
defeat he sent an order to Colonel Cummings, commanding at Fort William
Henry, to send all the sick and wounded and all the heavy artillery to
New York without delay.[638] He himself followed so closely upon this
disgraceful missive that Cummings had no time to obey it.

[Footnote 638: _Cunningham, aide-de-camp of Abercromby, to Cummings, 8
July, 1758_.]

The defeated and humbled troops proceeded to reoccupy the ground they
had left a few days before in the flush of confidence and pride; and
young Colonel Williams, of Massachusetts, lost no time in sending the
miserable story to his uncle Israel. His letter, which is dated "Lake
George (sorrowful situation), July ye 11th," ends thus: "I have told
facts; you may put the epithets upon them. In one word, what with
fatigue, want of sleep, exercise of mind, and leaving the place we went
to capture, the best part of the army is unhinged. I have told enough to
make you sick, if the relation acts on you as the facts have on me."

In the routed army was the sturdy John Cleaveland, minister of Ipswich,
and now chaplain of Bagley's Massachusetts regiment, who regarded the
retreat with a disgust that was shared by many others. "This day," he
writes in his Diary, at the head of Lake George, two days after the
battle, "wherever I went I found people, officers and soldiers,
astonished that we left the French ground, and commenting on the strange
conduct in coming off." From this time forth the provincials called
their commander Mrs. Nabbycromby.[639] He t