d or wounded, including a great number of
officers. Every corps of regular troops behaved, on this unfortunate
occasion, with remarkable intrepidity; but the greatest loss was
sustained by lord John Murray's Highland regiment, of which above one
half of the private men, and twenty-five officers, were either slain
upon the spot, or desperately wounded. Mr. Abercrombie, unwilling to
stay in the neighbourhood of the enemy with forces which had received
such a dispiriting check, retired to his batteaux, and re-embarking the
troops, returned to the camp at lake George, from whence he had taken
his departure. Censure, which always attends miscarriage, did not spare
the character of this commander; his attack was condemned as rash, and
his retreat as pusillanimous. In such a case allowances must be made for
the peevishness of disappointment, and the clamour of connexion. How far
Mr. Abercrombie acquitted himself in the duty of a general we shall
not pretend to determine; but if he could depend upon the courage and
discipline of his forces, he surely had nothing to fear, after the
action, from the attempts of the enemy, to whom he would have been
superior in number, even though they had been joined by the expected
reinforcement; he might therefore have remained on the spot, in order to
execute some other enterprise when he should be reinforced in his turn;
for general Amherst no sooner heard of his disaster, than he returned
with the troops from Cape-Breton to New England, after having left a
strong garrison in Louis-bourg. At the head of six regiments he began
his march to Albany about the middle of September, in order to join the
forces on the lake, that they might undertake some other service before
the season should be exhausted.

FORT FRONTENAC TAKEN AND DESTROYED BY THE ENGLISH.

In the meantime, general Abercrombie had detached lieutenant-colonel
Bradstreet, with a body of three thousand men, chiefly provincials, to
execute a plan which this officer had formed against Cadaraqui, or fort
Frontenac, situated on the north side of the river St. Laurence, just
where it takes its origin from the lake Ontario. To the side of this
lake he penetrated with his detachment, and embarking in some sloops
and batteaux, provided for the purpose, landed within a mile of fort
Frontenac, the garrison of which, consisting of one hun dred and
ten men, with a few Indians, immediately surrendered at discretion.
Considering the importanc