At night the adventurers returned, raising
the death-cry and firing their guns; somewhat depressed by losses they
had suffered, but boasting that they had surprised fifty-three English,
and killed or taken all but one. It was a modest and perhaps an
involuntary exaggeration. "The very recital of the cruelties they
committed on the battle-field is horrible," writes Bougainville. "The
ferocity and insolence of these black-souled barbarians makes one
shudder. It is an abominable kind of war. The air one breathes is
contagious of insensibility and hardness."[454] This was but one of the
many such parties sent out from Ticonderoga this year.
[Footnote 454: Bougainville, _Journal_.]
Early in September a band of New England rangers came to Winslow's camp,
with three prisoners taken within the lines of Ticonderoga. Their
captain was Robert Rogers, of New Hampshire,--a strong, well-knit
figure, in dress and appearance more woodsman than soldier, with a
clear, bold eye, and features that would have been good but for the
ungainly proportions of the nose.[455] He had passed his boyhood in the
rough surroundings of a frontier village. Growing to manhood, he engaged
in some occupation which, he says, led him to frequent journeyings in
the wilderness between the French and English settlements, and gave him
a good knowledge of both.[456] It taught him also to speak a little
French. He does not disclose the nature of this mysterious employment;
but there can be little doubt that it was a smuggling trade with Canada.
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