[Footnote 522:  Affidavit of Miles Whitworth.  See Appendix F.]

A scene of plundering now began.  The escort had by this time arrived, and Monro complained to the officers that the capitulation was broken; but got no other answer than advice to give up the baggage to the Indians in order to appease them.  To this the English at length agreed; but it only increased the excitement of the mob.  They demanded rum; and some of the soldiers, afraid to refuse, gave it to them from their canteens, thus adding fuel to the flame.  When, after much difficulty, the column at last got out of the camp and began to move along the road that crossed the rough plain between the entrenchment and the forest, the Indians crowded upon them, impeded their march, snatched caps, coats, and weapons from men and officers, tomahawked those that resisted, and, seizing upon shrieking women and children, dragged them off or murdered them on the spot.  It is said that some of the interpreters secretly fomented the disorder.[523] Suddenly there rose the screech of the war-whoop.  At this signal of butchery, which was given by Abenaki Christians from the mission of the Penobscot,[524] a mob of savages rushed upon the New Hampshire men at the rear of the column, and killed or dragged away eighty of them.[525] A frightful tumult ensued, when Montcalm, Levis, Bourlamaque, and many other French officers, who had hastened from their camp on the first news of disturbance, threw themselves among the Indians, and by promises and threats tried to allay their frenzy.  “Kill me, but spare the English who are under my protection,” exclaimed Montcalm.  He took from one of them a young officer whom the savage had seized; upon which several other Indians immediately tomahawked their prisoners, lest they too should be taken from them.  One writer says that a French grenadier was killed and two wounded in attempting to restore order; but the statement is doubtful.  The English seemed paralyzed, and fortunately did not attempt a resistance, which, without ammunition as they were, would have ended in a general massacre.  Their broken column straggled forward in wild disorder, amid the din of whoops and shrieks, till they reached the French advance-guard, which consisted of Canadians; and here they demanded protection from the officers, who refused to give it, telling them that they must take to the woods and shift for themselves.  Frye was seized by a number of Indians, who, brandishing spears and tomahawks, threatened him with death and tore off his clothing, leaving nothing but breeches, shoes, and shirt.  Repelled by the officers of the guard, he made for the woods.  A Connecticut soldier who was present says of him that he leaped upon an Indian who stood in his way, disarmed and killed him, and then escaped; but Frye himself does not mention the incident.  Captain Burke, also of the Massachusetts regiment, was stripped, after a violent struggle, of all his clothes; then broke loose, gained the woods, spent