An
escaped prisoner told him that the French were coming to visit him with
fourteen thousand men;[442] but Montcalm thought no more of stirring
than Loudon himself; and each stood watching the other, with the lake
between them, till the season closed.
[Footnote 440: "Nous sommes tant a Carillon qu'aux postes avances 5,300
hommes." Bougainville, _Journal_.]
[Footnote 441: _Winslow to Loudon, 29 Sept. 1756_.]
[Footnote 442: _Examination of Sergeant James Archibald_.]
Meanwhile the western borders were still ravaged by the tomahawk. New
York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia all writhed under
the infliction. Each had made a chain of blockhouses and wooden forts to
cover its frontier, and manned them with disorderly bands, lawless, and
almost beyond control.[443] The case was at the worst in Pennsylvania,
where the tedious quarrelling of Governor and Assembly, joined to the
doggedly pacific attitude of the Quakers, made vigorous defence
impossible. Rewards were offered for prisoners and scalps, so bountiful
that the hunting of men would have been a profitable vocation, but for
the extreme wariness and agility of the game.[444] Some of the forts
were well built stockades; others were almost worthless; but the enemy
rarely molested even the feeblest of them, preferring to ravage the
lonely and unprotected farms. There were two or three exceptions. A
Virginian fort was attacked by a war-party under an officer named
Douville, who was killed, and his followers were put to flight.
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