This was not the case. The
_Gazette de France_, 621, says that La Motte had twenty-four ships of
war. Bougainville says that as early as the ninth of June there were
twenty-one ships of war, including five frigates, at Louisbourg. To this
the list given by Knox closely answers.]
Chapter 15
1757
Fort William Henry
"I am going on the ninth to sing the war-song at the Lake of Two
Mountains, and on the next day at Saut St. Louis,--a long, tiresome,
ceremony. On the twelfth I am off; and I count on having news to tell
you by the end of this month or the beginning of next." Thus Montcalm
wrote to his wife from Montreal early in July. All doubts had been
solved. Prisoners taken on the Hudson and despatches from Versailles had
made it certain that Loudon was bound to Louisbourg, carrying with him
the best of the troops that had guarded the New York frontier. The time
was come, not only to strike the English on Lake George, but perhaps to
seize Fort Edward and carry terror to Albany itself. Only one difficulty
remained, the want of provisions. Agents were sent to collect corn and
bacon among the inhabitants; the cures and militia captains were ordered
to aid in the work; and enough was presently found to feed twelve
thousand men for a month.[493]
[Footnote 493: Vaudreuil, _Lettres circulates aux Cures et aux
Capitaines de Milice des Paroisses du Gouvernement de Montreal, 16 Juin,
1757.
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