captured two months before, and had lately made his escape.  He told them that the French had the fullest information of the numbers and movements of the English; that letters often reached them from within the English lines; and that Lydius, a Dutch trader at Albany, was their principal correspondent.[459] Arriving at Ticonderoga, Rogers cautiously approached the fort, till, about noon, he saw a sentinel on the road leading thence to the woods.  Followed by five of his men, he walked directly towards him.  The man challenged, and Rogers answered in French.  Perplexed for a moment, the soldier suffered him to approach; till, seeing his mistake, he called out in amazement, “Qui etes vous?” “Rogers,” was the answer; and the sentinel was seized, led in hot haste to the boats, and carried to the English fort, where he gave important information.

[Footnote 459:  Letter and Order Books of Winslow.  “One Lydiass ... whom we suspect for a French spy; he lives better than anybody, without any visible means, and his daughters have had often presents from Mr. Vaudreuil.” Loudon (to Fox?), 19 Aug. 1756.]

An exploit of Rogers towards midsummer greatly perplexed the French.  He embarked at the end of June with fifty men in five whaleboats, made light and strong, expressly for this service, rowed about ten miles down Lake George, landed on the east side, carried the boats six miles over a gorge of the mountains, launched them again in South Bay, and rowed down the narrow prolongation of Lake Champlain under cover of darkness.  At dawn they were within six miles of Ticonderoga.  They landed, hid their boats, and lay close all day.  Embarking again in the evening, they rowed with muffled oars under the shadow of the eastern shore, and passed so close to the French fort that they heard the voices of the sentinels calling the watchword.  In the morning they had left it five miles behind.  Again they hid in the woods; and from their lurking-place saw bateaux passing, some northward, and some southward, along the narrow lake.

Crown Point was ten or twelve miles farther on.  They tried to pass it after nightfall, but the sky was too clear and the stars too bright; and as they lay hidden the next day, nearly a hundred boats passed before them on the way to Ticonderoga.  Some other boats which appeared about noon landed near them, and they watched the soldiers at dinner, within a musket-shot of their lurking-place.  The next night was more favorable.  They embarked at nine in the evening, passed Crown Point unseen, and hid themselves as before, ten miles below.  It was the seventh of July.  Thirty boats and a schooner passed them, returning towards Canada.  On the next night they rowed fifteen miles farther, and then sent men to reconnoitre, who reported a schooner at anchor about a mile off.  They were preparing to board her, when two sloops appeared, coming up the lake at but a short distance from the land.  They gave them