 enemy, the French general, though of approved skill,
had neglected to seize the adjacent mountains; whence the besieged might have
been exterminated with impunity, and which, in the more modern warfare of the
country, would not have been neglected for a single hour. This sort of contempt
for eminences, or rather dread of the labour of ascending them, might have been
termed the besetting weakness of the warfare of the period. It originated in the
simplicity of the Indian contests, in which, from the nature of the combats, and
the density of the forests, fortresses were rare, and artillery next to useless.
The carelessness engendered by these usages, descended even to the war of the
revolution, and lost the states the important fortress of Ticonderoga, opening a
way for the army of Burgoyne, into what was then the bosom of the country. We
look back at this ignorance, or infatuation, which ever it may be called, with
wonder, knowing that the neglect of an eminence, whose difficulties, like those
of Mount Defiance, had been so greatly exaggerated, would, at the present time,
prove fatal to the reputation of the engineer who had planned the works at their
base, or to that of the general, whose lot it was to defend them.
    The tourist, the valetudinarian, or the amateur of the beauties of nature,
who, in the train of his four-in-hand, now rolls through the scenes we have
attempted to describe, in quest of information, health, or pleasure, or floats
steadily towards his object on those artificial waters, which have sprung up
under the administration of a statesman,21 who has dared to stake his political
character on the hazardous issue, is not to suppose that his ancestors traversed
those hills, or struggled with the same currents with equal facility. The
transportation of a single heavy gun, was often considered equal to a victory
gained; if happily the difficulties of the passage had not so far separated it
from its necessary concomitants, the ammunition, as to render it no more than an
useless tube of unwieldy iron.
    The evils of this state of things pressed heavily on the fortunes of the
resolute Scotsman, who now defended William Henry. Though his adversary
neglected the hills, he had planted his batteries with judgment on the plain,
and caused them to be served with vigour and skill. Against this assault, the
besieged could only oppose the imperfect and hasty preparations of a fortress in
the wilderness.
    It was in the afternoon of the fifth day of the siege, and the fourth of his
own service in it,
