e of this post, which in a great measure
commanded the mouth of the river St. Laurence, and served as a magazine
to the more southern castles, the French general was inexcusable for
leaving it in such a defenceless condition. The fortification itself
was inconsiderable and ill-contrived; nevertheless, it contained sixty
pieces of cannon, sixteen small mortars, with an immense quantity of
merchandise and provisions, deposited for the use of the French forces
detached against brigadier Forbes, their western garrisons, and Indian
allies, as well as for the subsistence of the corps commanded by M. de
Levi, on his enterprise against the Mohawk river. Mr. Bradstreet not
only reduced the fort without bloodshed, but also made himself master of
all the enemy's shipping on the lake, amounting to nine armed vessels,
some of which carried eighteen guns. Two of these Mr. Bradstreet
conveyed to Oswego, whither he returned with his troops, after he had
destroyed fort Frontenac, with all the artillery, stores, provisions,
and merchandise, which it contained. In consequence of this exploit, the
French troops to the southward were exposed to the hazard of starving;
hut it is not easy to conceive the general's reason for giving orders
to abandon and destroy a fort, which, if properly strengthened and
sustained, might have rendered the English masters of the lake Ontario,
and grievously harassed the enemy both in their commerce and expeditions
to the westward. Indeed, great part of the Indian trade centered at
Frontenac, to which place the Indians annually repaired from all parts
of America, some of them at the distance of a thousand miles, and here
exchanged their furs for European commodities. So much did the French
traders excel the English in the art of conciliating the affection of
those savage tribes, that great part of them, in their yearly progress
to this remote market, actually passed by the British settlement of
Albany, in New York, where they might have been supplied with what
articles they wanted, much cheaper than they could purchase them
at Frontenac or Montreal; nay, the French traders used to furnish
themselves with those very commodities from the merchants of New York,
and found this traffic much more profitable than that of procuring the
same articles from France, loaded with the expense of a tedious and
dangerous navigation, from the sea to the source of the river St.
Laurence.

{GEORGE II. 1727-1760}

BRIGADIER