plan from being carried out. The work was now to be done, however. The Canadian government were thrown into great agitation on learning Governor Burnet's intention. Agents and spies passed to and fro, and penetrated into the Iroquois country; one hundred English with sixty canoes were found in the Oswego River in October, 1725at which the French agent was highly indignant. The only result of the French negotiation with the Iroquois was the permission obtained from the sachems to build at Niagara a large stone house and two small vessels barques.. In the summer of 1726 there were three hundred English at Oswego. In the spring of 1727, a strong stone fortified house was built at the mouth of the river. Permission was asked, and obtained from the Iroquois, for the erection of this fort. Sixty soldiers with a captain and two lieutenants were sent to protect the workmen. Two hundred traders, already on the ground, were also embodied as militia. A permanent garrison of twenty men, under an officer, was stationed there when the work was completed.

In the course of the summer M. de Beauharnais, Governor of Canada, sent a formal remonstrance in true diplomatic style to Governor Burnet upon his having built a "Redout" at Choueguen, which he chose to consider a violation of the treaty of Utrecht. He knew from spies of his own, the nature of the works. This redoubt was in fact a very substantial stone building of rough masonry and clay, sixty feet by twenty-four, with walls four feet thick, and with galleries and loop-holes. There were at that time twenty batteaux and eight bark canoes lying in the little harbor. There were tents for the troops, and seventy cabins for Dutch and English traders. All this excited the diplomatic ire of M. de Beauharnais to the highest degree. He had sent a formal summons to surrender, to the commander of the fort at Oswego, a week before writing to Governor Burnet, which to us at the present day appears rather a singular mode of proceeding. The English offi cer was ordered to withdraw his garrison and demolish his

redoubt" within a fortnight," failing in which the severest measures would be taken to punish his "unjust usurpation.'

To the remonstrance of M. de Beauharnais, Governor Burnet sent a very good answer quoting the treaty of Utrecht, which declared the Five Nations to be subject to the dominion of Great Britain. The question was referred to London and Versailles, and like other matters of dispute between the two Crowns, was held in abeyance to be disposed of at some future day by the sword. Meanwhile fort and garrison were unmolested.

In 1743 the French had three sailing vessels of fifty or sixty tons on Lake Ontario. The first English vessel on the lake was a small schooner, forty feet keel, with fourteen sweeps and twelve swivels. She was launched on the 28th of June, 1755. The following year the English had three flat-bottomed gun-brigs afloat, and were preparing to build others.

The fortifications at Oswego were gradually much strengthened and enlarged. A new fort of logs, twenty or thirty inches thick, was built on the height above the eastern bank of the river; the wall was fourteen feet high, and protected by a ditch fourteen feet wide. A third fort was also built to the westward of the older one, with a rampart of earth and stones, twenty feet thick, and twelve feet high, with a ditch in front fourteen feet wide, and ten feet deep. Cannons and mortars defended these forts. It was now resolved in the councils of Canada that Choueguen should be attacked. But the defeat of General Dieskau at Lake George in 1755 delayed the expedition. It was only delayed, however. "From the hour of its foundation, Choueguen is the rallying ground of the Indian tribes," wrote the Governor of Canada, M. de Vaudreuil. "From Choueguen come all the belts and messages that the English scatter among the far nations. It is always at Choueguen that the English hold councils with the Indians.".... In fine Choueguen is the direct cause of all the troubles that have befallen the colony. Choueguen must fall.

fifty men, and some officers, and released the Indians. We sent word to the English to surrender, they preferred to throw themselves into their batteaux. Our Indians and Frenchmen rushed into the water, and each made many prisoners. The loss of the enemy from data in our possession amounts to twenty-six scalps, and thirty prisoners. Deserters report our having put more than four hundred of their men hors du combat. This may allow of a margin. Their detachment consisted of twelve or thirteen hundred men returning from victualling Choueguen. Our detach. ment amounted to four hundred, including Canadians and Indians."

Another variation follows: "Sieur de Villiers, being on the 2d of July at the head of four hundred Frenchmen and some Indians, fell in with about five hundred batteaux and thirteen hundred English, whom he attacked so vigorously that he left four hundred and fifty of them dead, and took forty prisoners. The remainder threw themselves on the opposite side of the river, and abandoned their batteaux, which were burnt. We have lost six men, and two wounded in this affair."

A third bulletin to the Ministry at Versailles is in the same strain: "This detachment has had occasion to harass the enemy, who, at the close of June, were attacked on their way by water, though numbering nearly two thousand. They lost four hundred men, and we not more than four or five."

The veracious report of an Abbé, a private letter, must conclude these variations upon History: "In the beginning of July, while M. de Villiers, a Canadian Captain, was lying in ambush, in the river Choueguen, with a detachment of eight hundred men, our Indians fired too soon. The cnemy amounted to fifteen hundred, whom we have defeated; eight hundred were killed, about five hundred batteaux and provisions were taken and burned. We lost ten men."

Let us now resume a grave face, and return to the actual

eiege of Oswego, which fortunately for our task has been recorded with much more accuracy than the reports of the prowess of M. de Villiers, in his encounter with Colonel Bradstreet.

Regiments had been sent forward from Quebec early in the summer. One of the French officers recently arrived in America, declares himself charmed with the beauty of the country on the banks of the St. Lawrence. The mos

quitoes were not so much to his taste; his regiment had several men in the hospital in consequence of the bites of those insects, and three or four officers were suffering severely from tumors caused in the same way. Montreal delighted him; it was a large town; but appeared to him in great danger of being destroyed by fire, "as all the houses are of wood."

In July the whole French force was moving nearer to the threatened fort at Choueguen. On the 29th of July M. de Montcalm arrived at Frontenac. On the 6th of August, he crossed the lake to Niouarè or Sandy Creek. The force under his command was about three thousand men. Among his artillery were guns taken from General Braddock, and a portion of the cannon balls were marked with the broad arrow of England.

On the 10th of August, the vanguard advanced to a cove within a mile or two of Oswego. The next day Fort Ontario on the eastern bank was invested by a force of Canadians and Indians. On the 12th the military works of the enemy were carried on vigorously; batteries were erected; a park of artillery was placed in position; and the trenches were begun. The fire of the English was very brisk. The English cruisers were hovering about the mouth of the river. Suddenly about midnight, the fire from Fort Ontario ceased the garrison stationed there was ordered, by a signal from Colonel Mercer, to abandon the fort and move across the river to Fort Oswego. The movement was successfully performed, although it became necessary to abandon the guns. The French immediately took pos

session of this eastern fort, and turned their whole force against Forts Oswego and George on the western bank. A large battery was built for the purpose of attacking Fort Oswego in the rear; to complete this work twenty pieces of cannon were transported to this battery during the night by the strong arms of the men, the whole army excepting those in the trenches being engaged in this severe task. At daylight on the 14th, M. de Montcalm ordered the Canadians and Indians to ford the river and harass the enemy from the surrounding woods. Accordingly with M. de Rigaud at their head, they waded across, raising frightful yells, which the Indians called Salaquois; probably the death-whoop, said by those who have heard it in our own day to be the most fearful sound ever uttered by human beings. The fire of the English was briskly kept up until ten o'clock. At this hour they unexpectedly hoisted the white flag, and sent two officers to offer capitulation.

The French were surprised by this early surrender after a fire so brisk on the part of the besieged. But the death of Colonel Mercer, the brave commander, appears to have been the principal cause of the step-which could not under the circumstances have been long delayed. The great rapidity of the French movements in opening the trenches, on ground so difficult to work, and in moving their artillery without horses, with the skillful manœuvres of M. de Montcalm, seems to have produced the impression in the fort, that the besieging army was much larger than their real number. A French account declared that "Choueguen has fallen, or rather surrendered to the yells of the Canadians and Indians." "It is to be concluded," says M. de Montcalm, "that the English when transported, are no longer brave.” This was a very important success for Canada. The French appear to have lost about eighty killed and wounded. M. de Vaudreuil, however, in his official despatches to France, says, "three killed, and two by accident!" The English lost one hundred and fifty killed; prisoners, sixteen hundred and forty, among whom were eighty military men,