Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/162

 130 Capture of Port Jfilliam Henry. [1757 and the English settlements, quaking with a fully justified trepidation and sorely weakened in their former faith in the invincibility of the mother-country. The story of the capture of Fort William Henry and its ghastly sequel is one of the dramatic episodes with which this period of American history abounds, though it can only be treated in brief outline here. Montcalm, with the help of boats and bateaux, expe- rienced little difficulty and no opposition in bringing his motley but effective host and formidable artillery to the raw clearing of the forest, not a stone's throw from the lake shore, where the doomed fortress awaited its fate. His summons to surrender, coupled with a significant hint that the 1800 Indians with him, if exasperated by resistance, might prove uncontrollable, was curtly rejected by Munro, who did not wholly despair of help from Webb. The garrison, which contained Otway's regiment (the 35th), was outnumbered by nearly four to one, and in average quality was at an even greater disadvantage. The British artillery was miserably inferior to that of the enemy, and the garrison was encumbered with women and children and a long sick list. Webb, who was responsible for the posts which kept the road to Albany open, had sent from Fort Edward all the men he could spare to Munro. To have faced the French in the open with less than 2000 raw militia, and at the same time left Fort Edward at the enemy's mercy, would have been most hazardous. Yet Webb has been widely blamed for his inaction, probably on the principle followed by Loudon's critics of " once wrong always wrong," for he had made mistakes before. Through a week the roar of artillery, the rattle of musketry, and the wild war-whoops of the Indians woke fierce echoes in the mountain gorges round Lake George. The defenders' ammunition was nearly exhausted, their wretched cannon had burst or were dismounted. Sickness was raging, and the French trenches, armed with heavy artillery, had been pushed close to the ramparts. Entirely surrounded, cut off from sup- plies, Loudon being on the Atlantic and Webb hemmed in, Munro agreed to the inevitable capitulation. Canada could scarcely feed her own people and troops ; accordingly the garrison, under the promise of not serving for eighteen months, were to be safely escorted with their moveables to Fort Edward. But all French subjects taken since the war began were to be restored ; each prisoner so delivered was to release from his parole a member of the garrison. The fort was then abandoned for a large entrenchment near by which had been included in the defence. It was at the evacuation of this temporary refuge that the bloody scene was enacted which has stained Montcalm's memory. The Indians, though they had joined in the agreement, could not tolerate the sight of vanquished enemies marching off, not merely with their lives and scalps, but with their clothes, arms and small possessions. The outrage began with a scuffle ; the war-whoop was raised ; and a hundred