"[439] He sailed for England in the autumn,
disappointed and poor; the bull-headed Duke of Cumberland had been
deeply prejudiced against him, and it was only after long waiting that
this strenuous champion of British interests was rewarded in his old age
with the petty government of the Bahamas.
[Footnote 436: _Loudon to Shirley, 6 Sept. 1756_.]
[Footnote 437: The correspondence on both sides is before me, copied
from the originals in the Public Record Office.]
[Footnote 438: "The principal thing for which I sent Mr. Mackellar to
Oswego was to strengthen Fort Ontario as much as he possibly could."
_Shirley to Loudon, 4 Sept. 1756._]
[Footnote 439: _Works of Franklin_, I. 220.]
Loudon had now about ten thousand men at his command, though not all fit
for duty. They were posted from Albany to Lake George. The Earl himself
was at Fort Edward, while about three thousand of the provincials still
lay, under Winslow, at the lake. Montcalm faced them at Ticonderoga,
with five thousand three hundred regulars and Canadians, in a position
where they could defy three times their number.[440] "The sons of Belial
are too strong for me," jocosely wrote Winslow;[441] and he set himself
to intrenching his camp; then had the forest cut down for the space of a
mile from the lake to the mountains, so that the trees, lying in what he
calls a "promiscuous manner," formed an almost impenetrable abatis.
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