[Footnote 405:  Shirley to Fox, 7 May, 1756.  Shirley to Abercromby, 27 June, 1756.  London to Fox, 19 Aug. 1756.]

In May Vaudreuil sent Coulon de Villiers with eleven hundred soldiers, Canadians, and Indians, to harass Oswego and cut its communications with Albany.[406] Nevertheless Bradstreet safely conducted a convoy of provisions and military stores to the garrison; and on the third of July set out on his return with the empty boats.  The party were pushing their way up the river in three divisions.  The first of these, consisting of a hundred boats and three hundred men, with Bradstreet at their head, were about nine miles from Oswego, when, at three in the afternoon, they received a heavy volley from the forest on the east bank.  It was fired by a part of Villiers’ command, consisting, by English accounts, of about seven hundred men.  A considerable number of the boatmen were killed or disabled, and the others made for the shelter of the western shore.  Some prisoners were taken in the confusion; and if the French had been content to stop here, they might fairly have claimed a kind of victory; but, eager to push their advantage, they tried to cross under cover of an island just above.  Bradstreet saw the movement, and landed on the island with six or eight followers, among whom was young Captain Schuyler, afterwards General Schuyler of the Revolution.  Their fire kept the enemy in check till others joined them, to the number of about twenty.  These a second and a third time beat back the French, who now gave over the attempt, and made for another ford at some distance above.  Bradstreet saw their intention; and collecting two hundred and fifty men, was about to advance up the west bank to oppose them, when Dr. Kirkland, a surgeon, came to tell him that the second division of boats had come up, and that the men had landed.  Bradstreet ordered them to stay where they were, and defend the lower crossing:  then hastened forward; but when he reached the upper ford, the French had passed the river, and were ensconced in a pine-swamp near the shore.  Here he attacked them; and both parties fired at each other from behind trees for an hour, with little effect.  Bradstreet at length encouraged his men to make a rush at the enemy, who were put to flight and driven into the river, where many were shot or drowned as they tried to cross.  Another party of the French had meanwhile passed by a ford still higher up to support their comrades; but the fight was over before they reached the spot, and they in their turn were set upon and driven back across the stream.  Half an hour after, Captain Patten arrived from Onondaga with the grenadiers of Shirley’s regiment; and late in the evening two hundred men came from Oswego to reinforce the victors.  In the morning Bradstreet prepared to follow the French to their camp, twelve miles distant; but was prevented by a heavy rain which lasted all day.  On the Monday following, he and his men reached Albany, bringing two prisoners, eighty French muskets, and many knapsacks picked up in the woods.  He had lost between sixty and seventy killed, wounded, and taken.[407]