Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/518

486 of victory, you shall be allowed to take the scalps of the dead when killed by your fire and in fair opposition, but on no account, or pretence, or subtlety, or prevarication, are they to be taken from the wounded, or even the dying, and still less pardonable, if possible, will it be held to kill men in that condition on purpose, and upon a supposition that this protection to the wounded would thereby be evaded." The Indians, were, as usual, ready to promise what was expected of them; but no reliance was to be placed upon their promises, and the English name received a stain not easy to efface, in having let loose upon the Americans the savage fury of their Indian confederates.

Burgoyne having advanced to Ticonderoga, under date of July 2d, Issued a grandiloquent proclamation, addressed to the people of the country, threatening terrible things to the refractory, and holding out promises of protection and favor to those who would submit. This proclamation, coming from a man of some considerable literary pretension, is a curious document; the reader will find it in the Appendix to the present chapter, as also one of those keen, satirical replies to which it gave rise. In truth, nothing could have been more ill-judged; for the Americans were the last people in the world to be frightened or cajoled by bombastic words.

Ticonderoga was but poorly garrisoned, in consequence of the larger part of the force from the north having joined the commander-in-chief, in New Jersey. General St. Clair was in command, and had about two thousand men under him; but the works were extensive enough to require ten thousand to man them fully against a strong invading force. Opposite Ticonderoga, on the east side of the channel, which is here between three hundred and four hundred yards wide, stands a high circular hill, called Mount Independence, which had been occupied by the Americans when they abandoned Crown Point, and strongly fortified. On the top of it, which is flat, they had erected a fort, and provided it sufficiently with artillery. Near the foot of the mountain, which extends to the water's edge, they had raised entrenchments, and mounted them with heavy guns, and had covered those lower works by a battery about half way up the hill.

With prodigious labor they had constructed a communication between those two posts, by means of a wooden bridge which was supported by twenty-two strong wooden pillars, placed at nearly equal distances from each other. The spaces between the pillars were filled up by separate floats, strongly fastened to each other and to the pillars, by chains and rivets. The bridge was twelve feet wide, and the side of it next Lake Champlain was defended by a boom formed of large pieces of timber, bolted and bound together by double iron chains an inch and a half thick. Thus an easy communication was established between Ticonderoga and Mount Independence, and the passage of vessels up the strait prevented.

Immediately after passing