Delancey ordered them to be fired
upon. A sergeant was shot, others were put in arrest, and all was
disorder till the seventeenth; when Webb, learning that the French were
gone, sent them back to their homes.[528]
[Footnote 528: _Delancey to_ [_Holdernesse?_], _24 Aug. 1757._]
Close on the fall of Fort William Henry came crazy rumors of disaster,
running like wildfire through the colonies. The number and ferocity of
the enemy were grossly exaggerated; there was a cry that they would
seize Albany and New York itself;[529] while it was reported that Webb,
as much frightened as the rest, was for retreating to the Highlands of
the Hudson.[530] This was the day after the capitulation, when a part
only of the militia had yet appeared. If Montcalm had seized the moment,
and marched that afternoon to Fort Edward, it is not impossible that in
the confusion he might have carried it by a _coup-de-main._
[Footnote 529: _Captain Christie to Governor Wentworth, 11 Aug. 1757.
Ibid., to Governor Pownall, same date._]
[Footnote 530: Smith, _Hist. N.Y._, Part II. 254.]
Here was an opportunity for Vaudreuil, and he did not fail to use it.
Jealous of his rival's exploit, he spared no pains to tarnish it;
complaining that Montcalm had stopped half way on the road to success,
and, instead of following his instructions, had contented himself with
one victory when he should have gained two. But the Governor had
enjoined upon him as a matter of the last necessity that the Canadians
should be at their homes before September to gather the crops, and he
would have been the first to complain had the injunction been
disregarded.
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