would be sufficient to frustrate their endeavours, and render the
enterprise abortive. This resolution seems, indeed, to have been the
most eligible in their circumstances, whatever construction might
afterwards be given, with intention to prejudice the public against the
commander-in-chief.

FORT WILLIAM-HENRY TAKEN by the FRENCH.

Lord Loudon's departure from New-York, with all the forces he was able
to collect, afforded the marquis de Montcalm the fairest occasion of
improving the successes of the former campaign. That general had, in the
very commencement of the season, made three different attacks on
fort William-Henry, in all of which he was repulsed by the vigour and
resolution of the garrison. But his disappointment here was balanced by
an advantage gained by a party of regulars and Indians at Ticonderoga.
Colonel John Parker, with a detachment of near four hundred men, went by
water, in whale and bay boats, to attack the enemy's advanced guard at
that place. Landing at night on an island, he sent before dawn three
boats to the main land, which the enemy waylaid and took. Having
procured the necessary intelligence from the prisoners of the colonel's
designs, they contrived their measures, placed three hundred men in
ambush behind the point where he proposed landing, and sent three
batteaux to the place of rendezvous. Colonel Parker mistaking these
for his own boats, eagerly put to shore, was surrounded by the enemy,
reinforced with four hundred men, and attacked with such impetuosity,
that, of the whole detachment, only two officers and seventy private
men escaped. Flushed with this advantage, animated by the absence of the
British commander-in-chief, then at Halifax, and fired with a desire to
revenge the disgrace he had lately sustained before fort Henry, Montcalm
drew together all his forces, with intention to lay siege to that place.
Fort William-Henry stands on the southern coast of Lake George; it was
built with a view to protect and cover the frontiers of the English
colonies, as well as to command the lake; the fortifications were good,
defended by a garrison of near three thousand men, and covered by an
army of four thousand, under the conduct of general Webb, posted at
no great distance. When the marquis de Montcalm had assembled all the
forces at Crown-Point, Ticonderoga, and the adjacent posts, together
with a considerable body of Canadians and Indians, amounting in the
whole to near ten thou