Day after day the weary roar of the distant cannonade fell on the ears
of Webb in his camp at Fort Edward. "I have not yet received the least
reinforcement," he writes to Loudon; "this is the disagreeable situation
we are at present in. The fort, by the heavy firing we hear from the
lake, is still in our possession; but I fear it cannot long hold out
against so warm a cannonading if I am not reinforced by a sufficient
number of militia to march to their relief." The militia were coming;
but it was impossible that many could reach him in less than a week.
Those from New York alone were within call, and two thousand of them
arrived soon after he sent Loudon the above letter. Then, by stripping
all the forts below, he could bring together forty-five hundred men;
while several French deserters assured him that Montcalm had nearly
twelve thousand. To advance to the relief of Monro with a force so
inferior, through a defile of rocks, forests, and mountains, made by
nature for ambuscades,--and this too with troops who had neither the
steadiness of regulars nor the bush-fighting skill of Indians,--was an
enterprise for firmer nerve than his.
He had already warned Monro to expect no help from him. At midnight of
the fourth, Captain Bartman, his aide-de-camp, wrote: "The General has
ordered me to acquaint you he does not think it prudent to attempt a
junction or to assist you till reinforced by the militia of the
colonies, for the immediate march of which repeated expresses have been
sent.
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