Till November, the hostile forces continued to watch each other from the opposite ends of Lake George.  Loudon repeated his orders to Winslow to keep the defensive, and wrote sarcastically to the Colonial Minister:  “I think I shall be able to prevent the provincials doing anything very rash, without their having it in their power to talk in the language of this country that they could have taken all Canada if they had not been prevented by the King’s servants.”  Winslow tried to console himself for the failure of the campaign, and wrote in his odd English to Shirley:  “Am sorry that this years’ performance has not succeeded as was intended; have only to say I pushed things to the utmost of my power to have been sooner in motion, which was the only thing that should have carried us to Crown Point; and though I am sensible that we are doing our duty in acting on the defensive, yet it makes no eclate [sic], and answers to little purpose in the eyes of my constituents.”

On the first of the month the French began to move off towards Canada, and before many days Ticonderoga was left in the keeping of five or six companies.[464] Winslow’s men followed their example.  Major Eyre, with four hundred regulars, took possession of Fort William Henry, and the provincials marched for home, their ranks thinned by camp diseases and small-pox.[465] In Canada the regulars were quartered on the inhabitants, who took the infliction as a matter of course.  In the English provinces the question was not so simple.  Most of the British troops were assigned to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston; and Loudon demanded free quarters for them, according to usage then prevailing in England during war.  Nor was the demand in itself unreasonable, seeing that the troops were sent over to fight the battles of the colonies.  In Philadelphia lodgings were given them in the public-houses, which, however, could not hold them all.  A long dispute followed between the Governor, who seconded Loudon’s demand, and the Assembly, during which about half the soldiers lay on straw in outhouses and sheds till near midwinter, many sickening, and some dying from exposure.  Loudon grew furious, and threatened, if shelter were not provided, to send Webb with another regiment and billet the whole on the inhabitants; on which the Assembly yielded, and quarters were found.[466]

[Footnote 464:  Bougainville, Journal.  Malartic, Journal.]

[Footnote 465:  Letter and Order Books of Winslow.  Winslow to Halifax, 30 Dec. 1756.]

[Footnote 466:  Loudon to Denny, 28 Oct. 1756.  Colonial Records of Pa., VII. 358-380. Loudon to Pitt, 10 March, 1757.  Notice of Colonel Bouquet, in Pennsylvania Magazine, III. 124. The Conduct of a Noble Commander in America impartially reviewed (1758).]