Five days after leaving his party he reached the first
English settlement, Charlestown, or "Number Four," and immediately sent
a canoe with provisions to the relief of the sufferers, following
himself with other canoes two days later. Most of the men were saved,
though some died miserably of famine and exhaustion. Of the few who had
been captured, we are told by French contemporary that they "became
victims of the fury of the Indian women," from whose clutches the
Canadians tried in vain to save them.[752]
[Footnote 752: _Evenements de la Guerre en Canada,_ 1759, 1760. Compare
_N.Y. Col. Docs.,_ X. 1042.]
NOTE: On the day after he reached "Number Four," Rogers wrote a report
of his expedition to Amherst. This letter is printed in his _Journals_,
in which he gives also a supplementary account, containing further
particulars. The _New Hampshire Gazette, Boston Evening Post,_ and other
newspapers of the time recount the story in detail. Hoyt (_Indian Wars,_
302) repeats it, with a few additions drawn from the recollections of
survivors, long after. There is another account, very short and
unsatisfactory, by Thompson Maxwell, who says that he was of the party,
which is doubtful. Mante (223) gives horrible details of the sufferings
of the rangers. An old chief of the St. Francis Indians, said to be one
of those who pursued Rogers after the town was burned, many years ago
told Mr. Jesse Pennoyer, a government land surveyor, that Rogers laid an
ambush for the pursuers, and defeated them with great loss.
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