The English had built two small forts to guard the Great Carrying Place on the route to Oswego.  One of these, Fort Williams, was on the Mohawk; the other, Fort Bull, a mere collection of storehouses surrounded by a palisade, was four miles distant, on the bank of Wood Creek.  Here a great quantity of stores and ammunition had imprudently been collected against the opening campaign.  In February Vaudreuil sent Lery, a colony officer, with three hundred and sixty-two picked men, soldiers, Canadians, and Indians, to seize these two posts.  Towards the end of March, after extreme hardship, they reached the road that connected them, and at half-past five in the morning captured twelve men going with wagons to Fort Bull.  Learning from them the weakness of that place, they dashed forward to surprise it.  The thirty provincials of Shirley’s regiment who formed the garrison had barely time to shut the gate, while the assailants fired on them through the loopholes, of which they got possession in the tumult.  Lery called on the defenders to yield; but they refused, and pelted the French for an hour with bullets and hand-grenades.  The gate was at last beat down with axes, and they were summoned again; but again refused, and fired hotly through the opening.  The French rushed in, shouting Vive le roi, and a frightful struggle followed.  All the garrison were killed, except two or three who hid themselves till the slaughter was over; the fort was set on fire and blown to atoms by the explosion of the magazines; and Lery then withdrew, not venturing to attack Fort Williams.  Johnson, warned by Indians of the approach of the French, had pushed up the Mohawk with reinforcements; but came too late.[377]

[Footnote 377:  Bigot au Ministre, 12 Avril, 1756.  Vaudreuil au Ministre, 1 Juin, 1756.  Ibid., 8 Juin, 1756.  Journal de ce qui s’est passe en Canada depuis le Mois d’Octobre, 1755, jusqu’au Mois de Juin, 1756.  Shirley to Fox, 7 May, 1756.  Conduct of Major-General Shirley briefly stated.  Information of Captain John Vicars, of the Fiftieth (Shirley’s) Regiment. Eastburn_, Faithful Narrative.  Entick, I. 471.  The French accounts place the number of English at sixty or eighty.]

Vaudreuil, who always exaggerates any success in which he has had part, says that besides bombs, bullets, cannon-balls, and other munitions, forty-five thousand pounds of gunpowder were destroyed on this occasion.  It is certain that damage enough was done to retard English operations in the direction of Oswego sufficiently to give the French time for securing all their posts on Lake Ontario.  Before the end of June this was in good measure done.  The battalion of Bearn lay encamped before the now strong fort of Niagara, and the battalions of Guienne and La Sarre, with a body of Canadians, guarded Frontenac against attack.  Those of La Reine and Languedoc had been sent to Ticonderoga, while the Governor, with Montcalm and Levis, still remained at Montreal watching the turn of events.[378]