[Footnote 497:  Journal de l’Expedition contre le Fort George [William Henry] du 12 Juillet au 16 Aout, 1757.  Bougainville, Journal.  Lettre du P. Roubaud.]

These unfortunates belonged to a detachment of three hundred provincials, chiefly New Jersey men, sent from Fort William Henry under command of Colonel Parker to reconnoitre the French outposts.  Montcalm’s scouts discovered them; on which a band of Indians, considerably more numerous, went to meet them under a French partisan named Corbiere, and ambushed themselves not far from Sabbath Day Point.  Parker had rashly divided his force; and at daybreak of the twenty-sixth of July three of his boats fell into the snare, and were captured without a shot.  Three others followed, in ignorance of what had happened, and shared the fate of the first.  When the rest drew near, they were greeted by a deadly volley from the thickets, and a swarm of canoes darted out upon them.  The men were seized with such a panic that some of them jumped into the water to escape, while the Indians leaped after them and speared them with their lances like fish.  “Terrified,” says Bougainville, “by the sight of these monsters, their agility, their firing, and their yells, they surrendered almost without resistance.”  About a hundred, however, made their escape.  The rest were killed or captured, and three of the bodies were eaten on the spot.  The journalist adds that the victory so elated the Indians that they became insupportable; “but here in the forests of America we can no more do without them than without cavalry on the plain."[498]

[Footnote 498:  Bougainville, Journal.  Malartic, Journal.  Montcalm a Vaudreuil, 27 Juillet, 1757.  Webb to Loudon, 1 Aug. 1757.  Webb to Delancey, 30 July, 1757.  Journal de l’Expedition contre le Fort George.  London Magazine, 1757, 457.  Miles, French and Indian Wars.  Boston Gazette, 15 Aug. 1757.]

Another success at about the same time did not tend to improve their manners.  A hundred and fifty of them, along with a few Canadians under Marin, made a dash at Fort Edward, killed or drove in the pickets, and returned with thirty-two scalps and a prisoner.  It was found, however, that the scalps were far from representing an equal number of heads, the Indians having learned the art of making two or three out of one by judicious division.[499]

[Footnote 499:  This affair was much exaggerated at the time.  I follow Bougainville, who had the facts from Marin.  According to him, the thirty-two scalps represented eleven killed; which exactly answers to the English loss as stated by Colonel Frye in a letter from Fort Edward.]