"[433]
[Footnote 432: _Vaudreuil au Ministre, 20 Aout, 1756_. He elsewhere
makes the number somewhat greater. That the garrison, exclusive of
civilians, did not exceed at the utmost fourteen hundred, is shown by
_Shirley to Loudon, 5 Sept. 1756_. Loudon had charged Shirley with
leaving Oswego weakly garrisoned; and Shirley replies by alleging that
the troops there were in the number as above. It was of course his
interest to make them appear as numerous as possible. In the printed
_Conduct of Major-General Shirley briefly stated_, they are put at only
ten hundred and fifty.]
[Footnote 433: Several English writers say, however, that fifteen or
twenty young men were given up to the Indians to be adopted in place of
warriors lately killed.]
The loss on both sides is variously given. By the most trustworthy
accounts, that of the English did not reach fifty killed, and that of
the French was still less. In the forts and vessels were found above a
hundred pieces of artillery, most of them swivels and other light guns,
with a large quantity of powder, shot, and shell. The victors burned the
forts and the vessels on the stocks, destroyed such provisions and
stores as they could not carry away, and made the place a desert. The
priest Piquet, who had joined the expedition, planted amid the ruin a
tall cross, graven with the words, _In hoc signo vincunt_; and near it
was set a pole bearing the arms of France, with the inscription,
_Manibus date lilia plenis_.
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