CHAP. XLI.

Total Defeat at Ticonderoga-General Lee-Humanity of Madame.

THE next day they heard the particulars of the skirmish, for it could scarcely be called a regular engagement, which had proved fatal to the young warrior, whose loss was so deeply felt. The army had crossed lake George in safety, on the 5th of July, and landed without opposition. They proceeded in four columns to Ticonderoga, and displayed a spectacle unprecedented in the New World. An army of sixteen thousand men, regulars and provincials, with a train of artillery, with all the necessary provisions for an active campaign or regular siege, followed by a little fleet of bateaux, pontons, &c. They set out wrong however, by not having Indian guides, who are alone to be depended on in such a place. In a short time the columns fell in upon each other, and occasioned much confusion. While they marched on in this bewildered manner, the advanced guard of the French, which had retired before them, were equally bewildered, and falling in with them in this confusion, a skirmish ensued, in which the French lost above three hundred men, and we, though successful, lost as much as it was possible to lose, in one; for here it was that Lord Howe fell.

The fort is a situation of peculiarly natural strength; it lies on a little peninsula, with lake George on one side, and a narrow opening, communicating with lake Champlain, on the other. It is surrounded by water on three sides; and in front there is a swamp, very easily defended: and where it ceased the French had made a breast-work above eight feet high; not content with this, they had felled immense trees on the spot, and laid them heaped on each other, with their branches

outward, before their works. In fine, there was no place on earth where aggression was so difficult, and defence so easy, as in these woods; especially when, as in this case, the party to be attacked had great leisure to prepare their defence. On this impenetrable front they had also a line of cannon mounted; while the difficulty of bringing artillery through this swampy ground, near enough to bear upon the place, was very great. This garrison, almost impregnable from situation, was defended by between four and five thousand men. An engineer, sent to reconnoitre, was of opinion that it might be attacked without waiting for the artillery. The fatal resolution was taken without consulting those best qualified to judge. An Indian or native American were here better skilled in the nature of the ground, and probabilities of success. They knew better, in short, what the spade, hatchet, or musket, could or could not do, in such situations, than the most skilful veteran from Europe, however replete with military science. Indeed when system usurps the province of plain sound sense in unknown exigencies, the result is seldom favourable; and this truth was never more fatally demonstrated than in the course of the American war, where an obstinate adherence to regular tactics, which do not bend to time or place, occasioned, from first to last, an incalculable waste of blood, of treasure, and of personal courage. The resolution then was to attack the enemy without loss of time, and even without waiting for artillery. Alas! "what have not Britons dared?"

I cannot enter into the dreadful detail of what followed; certainly never was infatuation equal to this. The forty-second regiment was then in the height of deserved reputation; in which there was not a private man that did not consider himself as rather above the lower class of people, and peculiarly bound to support the honour of the very singular corps to which he belonged. This brave hard-fated regiment was then commanded by a veteran of great experience and mili

tary skill, Colonel Gordon Graham, who had the first point of attack assigned to him; he was wounded at the first onset. How many this regiment, in particular, lost of men and officers, I cannot now exactly say; but there were very many. What I distinctly remember, having often heard of it since, is, that, of the survivors, every officer retired wounded off the field. Of the fifty-fifth regiment, to which my father had newly been attached, ten officers were killed, including all the field officers. No human beings could show more determined courage than this brave army did. Standing four hours under a constant discharge of cannon and musketry from barricades, on which it was impossible for them to make the least impression, General Abercrombie saw the fruitless waste of blood that was every hour increasing, and ordered a retreat, which was very precipitate, so much so, that they crossed the lake, and regained their camp on the other side, the same night. Two thousand men were killed, wounded, or taken, on this disastrous day. On the next, those most dangerously wounded were sent forward in boats, and reached the Flats before evening; they in a manner brought (at least confirmed) the news of the defeat. Madame had her barn instantly fitted up into a temporary hospital, and a room in her house allotted for the surgeon who attended the patients: among these was Lee, the same insolent and rapacious Lee, who had insulted this general benefactress, and deprived her of one of her greatest pleasures, that of giving a share of every thing she had to advance the service. She treated him with compassion, without adverting, by the least hint, to the past. She tore up her sheets and table linen for bandages; and she and her nieces were constantly employed in attending and cheering the wounded, while all her domestics were busied in preparing food and every thing necessary for those unhappy sufferers. Even Lee felt and acknowledged the resistless force of such generous humanity. He swore, in his vehement manner, that he was

sure there would be a place reserved for madame in heaven, though no other woman should be there, and that he should wish for nothing better than to share her final destiny. The active, industrious beneficence she exercised at this time, not only towards the wounded, but the wretched widows and orphans who had remained here, and had lost their all in their husbands and parents, was beyond praise. Could I clearly recollect and arrange the anecdotes of this period, as I have often heard them, they would of themselves fill a volume; suffice it, that such was the veneration in which she was held in the army after this period, that I recollect, among the earliest impressions received in my mind, that of a profound reverence for madame, as these people were wont to call her. Before I ever saw her, I used to think of her as a most august personage, of a majestic presence; sitting on an elevated seat, and scattering bounty to wounded soldiers, and poor women and children.

CHAP. XLII.

The Family of Madame's Sister-The Death of the latter.

AUNT found consolation for all her sorrows in the family of her favourite sister. The promise of uncommon merit, which appeared in the rising branches of that singularly fine family, was to her a peculiar gratification; for no mother could love her own children more tenderly than she did them. The two daughters, which were amongst the eldest, passed, by turns, much of their time with her, and were, from their

beauty and their manners, the ornaments of her society; while their good sense, ripened by being called early into action, made these amiable and elegant young women more a comfort and assistance than a care or charge to their aunt, at a very early period. They had four brothers; three of whom are still living, and have, through life, done honour by their virtues, their manners, and their conduct, in the most trying exigencies, to the memory and example of their excellent parents, as well as to that collateral school of pure morality, and sound and genuine policy, of which they shared the benefit.

The history of this family, in the after vicissitudes in which the political changes in their country involved them, would furnish a very interesting detail, were it allowable to offend the delicacy of modest worth, or eligible to expose the depravity and fury of enraged factions. Of the brothers I shall only mention, that the third, in his childhood, showed uncommon fire and vivacity; not seeming to retain the smallest portion of that hereditary phlegm which could still be easily traced through many of the settlers of this peculiar colony. He could scarce be called an unlucky boy, for he never did harm designedly; yet he was so volatile, eccentric, and original, in the frolicksome excursions of his fancy, that many ludicrous and some serious consequences resulted from them. He showed, however, amidst all these gaieties, from a very early age, a steady and determined predilection towards a military life, which, in due time, was indulged, and has been since the means of leading him on to rank and distinction in the British service.* Of the eldest brother I shall have occasion to speak hereafter; the second and youngest were zealous partisans of government at the time of the revolution. Their loyalty

*The capture of Tobago was achieved by General C-r, who has for ear forty years been engaged in the most active and hazardous departnents of the service.