]
The army of Amherst had gathered at Oswego in July. On
the tenth of August it was all afloat on Lake Ontario, to the
number of ten thousand one hundred and forty-two men, besides about
seven hundred Indians under Sir William Johnson.[846]Before the
fifteenth the whole had reached La Presentation, otherwise called
Oswegatchie or La Galette, the seat of Father Piquet's mission. Near
by was a French armed brig, the "Ottawa," with ten cannon and a hundred
men, threatening destruction to Amherst's bateaux and whaleboats.
Five gunboats attacked and captured her. Then the army advanced again,
and were presently joined by two armed vessels of their own which had
lingered behind, bewildered among the channels of the Thousand Islands.
[Footnote 846: _A List of the Forces employed in the Expedition against
Canada_. Compare Mante, 301, and Knox, II. 403.]
Near the head of the rapids, a little below La Galette,
stood Fort Levis, built the year before on an islet in mid-channel.
Amherst might have passed its batteries with slight loss, continuing
his voyage without paying it the honor of a siege; and this was what
the French commanders feared that he would do. "We shall be fortunate,"
Levis wrote to Bourlamaque, "if the enemy amuse themselves with capturing
it. My chief anxiety is lest Amherst should reach Montreal
so soon that we may not have time to unite our forces to attack Haviland
or Murray.
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