Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/159

 1756] London and the British forces. 127 equals and neighbours, an arrangement in itself fatal to discipline. Sanitary knowledge, even such as then possessed by regular armies, was entirely absent ; and, in localities where men to-day seek camp life as a means of health, the colonial troops sickened by hundreds, and died by scores. Jealousies between the colonial leaders, and again between the colonial officers and those of the British regiments, increased the confusion. When to this are added the difficulties of campaigning in regions outside the food-producing area, wrapped in the gloom of unbroken forests and swarming with Indians, one ceases to wonder that North America proved the grave of such moderate reputations as George II's generals brought out with them before the days of Pitt's supremacy. Loudon was of a desponding nature, and acquired a reputation for dilatoriness and other failings that was perhaps not fully deserved. The summer was consumed in strengthening Forts Edward and William Henry and in building the vast fleet of boats necessary for advancing down Lake George against the French, whose great fortress of Carillon or Ticonderoga, at the narrow entrance to Lake Champlain, bade defiance to the British and filled the surrounding forests with fierce bands of marauding scalp-hunting warriors, both red and white. Similar troops were also to be found on the British side, and that in increasing numbers as time went on bands of hardy dare-devil rangers, drawn from the ranks of frontiermen and hunters and grouped under popular leaders like Stark and Rogers. The adventures of these men formed one long romance, while their services were invaluable. Their deeds of daring and heroism, their amazing fortitude, their hair-breadth escapes and their too often sanguinary deaths, add to the picturesqueness which so eminently distinguishes the story of these half-forgotten campaigns when read in detail. It is only possible here to remind the student that the intervals between those combined movements which general history can alone take note of were filled with performances whose simple narration makes fiction seem in comparison tame and poor ; and it is far from wonderful that many British officers, fascinated by the dash and danger of these forest raids, sought service in them and, being for once the amateurs, while the colonials were the experts, not seldom paid the penalty of their inexperience with their lives. The winter of 1756-57 dragged through with little change in the respective positions of the two rival nations. Campaigning in a serious sense was out of the question at that season of the year. The require- ment of winter-quarters for the regular troops raised considerable friction. The inhabitants of the chief cities showed a reluctance to provide food and shelter for the men who had come to fight their battles that seems almost inexplicable. The health of the soldiers, the temper of the officers, and the good understanding, so vital at this crisis, suffered in consequence. Large numbers deserted their colours. The colonial militiaman left his colours from the natural yearning of a raw recruit