ing, to press
forward to the Hudson and meet Howe. At the same time Lord George
Germain, the minister responsible, failed to instruct Howe to advance up
the Hudson to meet Burgoyne. Burgoyne had a genuine belief in the
wisdom of this strategy but he had no power to vary it, to meet changing
circumstances, and this was one chief factor in his failure.

Behold Burgoyne then, on the 17th of June, embarking on Lake Champlain
the army which, ever since his arrival in Canada on the 6th of May,
he had been preparing for this advance. He had rather more than seven
thousand men, of whom nearly one-half were Germans under the competent
General Riedesel. In the force of Burgoyne we find the ominous presence
of some hundreds of Indian allies. They had been attached to one side or
the other in every war fought in those regions during the previous one
hundred and fifty years. In the war which ended in 1763 Montcalm had
used them and so had his opponent Amherst. The regiments from the New
England and other colonies had fought in alliance with the painted
and befeathered savages and had made no protest. Now either times had
changed, or there was something in a civil war which made the use of
savages seem hideous. One thing is certain. Amherst had held his savages
in stern restraint and could say proudly that they had not committed a
single outrage. Burgoyne was not so happy.

In nearly every war the professional soldier shows distrust, if not
contempt, for civilian levies. Burgoyne had been in America before the
day of Bunker Hill and knew a great deal about the country. He thought
the "insurgents" good enough fighters when protected by trees and stones
and swampy ground. But he thought, too, that they had no real knowledge
of the science of war and could not fight a pitched battle. He himself
had not shown the prevision required by sound military knowledge. If the
British were going to abandon the advantage of sea power and fight where
they could not fall back on their fleet, they needed to pay special
attention to land transport. This Burgoyne had not done. It was only a
little more than a week before he reached Lake Champlain that he asked
Carleton to provide the four hundred horses and five hundred carts which
he still needed and which were not easily secured in a sparsely settled
country. Burgoyne lingered for three days at Crown Point, half way down
the lake. Then, on the 2d of July, he laid siege to Fort Ticonderoga.
Once past