ng the assailant. Attacks from the south fell upon
the front, or at best upon the flank, of the line of the St. Lawrence.
Attacks from Canada took New York and its dependencies in the rear.

[Illustration]

These elements of natural strength, in the military conditions of the
North, were impressed upon the minds of the Americans by the prolonged
resistance of Canada to the greatly superior numbers of the British
Colonists in the previous wars. Regarded, therefore, as a base for
attacks, of a kind with which they were painfully familiar, but to be
undergone now under disadvantages of numbers and power never before
experienced, it was desirable to gain possession of the St. Lawrence
and its posts before they were strengthened and garrisoned. At this
outset of hostilities, the American insurgents, knowing clearly their
own minds, possessed the advantage of the initiative over the British
government, which still hesitated to use against those whom it styled
rebels the preventive measures it would have taken at once against a
recognised enemy.

Under these circumstances, in May, 1775, a body of two hundred and
seventy Americans, led by Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, seized
the posts of Ticonderoga and Crown Point, which were inadequately
garrisoned. These are on the upper waters of Lake Champlain, where it
is less than a third of a mile wide; Ticonderoga being on a peninsula
formed by the lake and the inlet from Lake George, Crown Point on
a promontory twelve miles lower down.[1] They were positions of
recognised importance, and had been advanced posts of the British in
previous wars. A schooner being found there, Arnold, who had been a
seaman, embarked in her and hurried to the foot of the lake. The wind
failed him when still thirty miles from St. John's, another fortified
post on the lower narrows, where the lake gradually tapers down to
the Richelieu River, its outlet to the St. Lawrence. Unable to advance
otherwise, Arnold took to his boats with thirty men, pulled through
the night, and at six o'clock on the following morning surprised the
post, in which were only a sergeant and a dozen men. He reaped the
rewards of celerity. The prisoners informed him that a considerable
body of troops was expected from Canada, on its way to Ticonderoga;
and this force in fact reached St. John's on the next day. When it
arrived, Arnold was gone, having carried off a sloop which he found
there and destroyed everything else that coul