Now is the
time!"[747] Amherst soon after tried another expedient, and sent
Captains Kennedy and Hamilton with a flag of truce and a message of
peace to the Abenakis of St. Francis, who, he thought, won over by these
advances, might permit the two officers to pass unmolested to Quebec.
But the Abenakis seized them and carried them prisoners to Montreal; on
which Amherst sent Major Robert Rogers and a band of rangers to destroy
their town.[748]
[Footnote 747: _Amherst to Wolfe, 7 Aug. 1759._]
[Footnote 748: _Amherst to Pitt, 22 Oct. 1759._ Rogers, _Journals_,
144.]
It was the eleventh of October before the miniature navy of Captain
Loring--the floating battery, the brig, and the sloop that had been
begun three weeks too late--was ready for service. They sailed at once
to look for the enemy. The four French vessels made no resistance. One
of them succeeded in reaching Isle-aux-Noix; one was run aground; and
two were sunk by their crews, who escaped to the shore. Amherst,
meanwhile, leaving the provincials to work at the fort, embarked with
the regulars in bateaux, and proceeded on his northern way till, on the
evening of the twelfth, a head-wind began to blow, and, rising to a
storm, drove him for shelter into Ligonier Bay, on the west side of the
lake.[749] On the thirteenth, it blew a gale. The lake raged like an
angry sea, and the frail bateaux, fit only for smooth water, could not
have lived a moment.
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