 finding an enemy
within reach of his blow. The news had been brought towards the decline of a day
in midsummer, by an Indian runner, who also bore an urgent request from Munro,
the commander of a work on the shore of the holy lake, for a speedy and powerful
reinforcement. It has already been mentioned, that the distance between these
two posts was less than five leagues. The rude path which originally formed
their line of communication, had been widened for the passage of wagons, so that
the distance which had been travelled by the son of the forest in two hours,
might easily be effected by a detachment of troops, with their necessary
baggage, between the rising and setting of a summer sun. The loyal servants of
the British crown had given to one of these forest fastnesses the name of
William Henry, and to the other that of Fort Edward; calling each after a
favourite prince of the reigning family. The veteran Scotchman, just named, held
the first, with a regiment of regulars and a few provincials, a force, really,
by far too small to make head against the formidable power that Montcalm was
leading to the foot of his earthen mounds. At the latter, however, lay General
Webb, who commanded the armies of the king in the northern provinces, with a
body of more than five thousand men. By uniting the several detachments of his
command, this officer might have arrayed nearly double that number of combatants
against the enterprising Frenchman, who had ventured so far from his
reinforcements, with an army but little superior in numbers.
    But, under the influence of their degraded fortunes, both officers and men
appeared better disposed to await the approach of their formidable antagonists
within their works, than to resist the progress of their march, by emulating the
successful example of the French at Fort du Quesne, and striking a blow on their
advance.
    After the first surprise of the intelligence had a little abated, a rumour
was spread through the intrenched camp, which stretched along the margin of the
Hudson, forming a chain of outworks to the body of the fort itself, that a
chosen detachment of fifteen hundred men was to depart with the dawn for William
Henry, the post at the northern extremity of the portage. That which at first
was only rumour, soon became certainty, as orders passed from the quarters of
the commander-in-chief to the several corps he had selected for this service, to
prepare for their speedy departure. All doubt as to the intention of Webb now
vanished, and an hour or two of hurried footsteps and anxious faces succeeded
