cannon and sixteen mortars, which the victors used to batter down the walls; and then, reserving a few of the best, knocked off the trunnions of the others.  The Oneidas were bent on scalping some of the prisoners.  Bradstreet forbade it.  They begged that he would do as the French did,—­turn his back and shut his eyes; but he forced them to abstain from all violence, and consoled them by a lion’s share of the plunder.  In accordance with the orders of Abercromby, the fort was dismantled, and all the buildings in or around it burned, as were also the vessels, except the two largest, which were reserved to carry off some of the captured goods.  Then, with boats deeply laden, the detachment returned to Oswego; where, after unloading and burning the two vessels, they proceeded towards Albany, leaving a thousand of their number at the new fort which Brigadier Stanwix was building at the Great Carrying Place of the Mohawk.

Next to Louisbourg, this was the heaviest blow that the French had yet received.  Their command of Lake Ontario was gone.  New France was cut in two; and unless the severed parts could speedily reunite, all the posts of the interior would be in imminent jeopardy.  If Bradstreet had been followed by another body of men to reoccupy and rebuild Oswego, thus recovering a harbor on Lake Ontario, all the captured French vessels could have been brought thither, and the command of this inland sea assured at once.  Even as it was, the advantages were immense.  A host of savage warriors, thus far inclined to France or wavering between the two belligerents, stood henceforth neutral, or gave themselves to England; while Fort Duquesne, deprived of the supplies on which it depended, could make but faint resistance to its advancing enemy.

Amherst, with five regiments from Louisbourg, came, early in October, to join Abercromby at Lake George, and the two commanders discussed the question of again attacking Ticonderoga.  Both thought the season too late.  A fortnight after, a deserter brought news that Montcalm was breaking up his camp.  Abercromby followed his example.  The opposing armies filed off each to its winter quarters, and only a few scouting parties kept alive the embers of war on the waters and mountains of Lake George.

Meanwhile Brigadier Forbes was climbing the Alleghanies, hewing his way through the forests of western Pennsylvania, and toiling inch by inch towards his goal of Fort Duquesne.[646]

[Footnote 646:  On the capture of Fort Frontenac, Bradstreet to Abercromby, 31 Aug. 1758. Impartial Account of Lieutenant-Colonel Bradstreet’s Expedition, by a Volunteer in the Expedition (London, 1759).  Letter from a New York officer to his colonel, in Boston Gazette, no. 182.  Several letters from persons in the expedition, in Boston Evening Post, no. 1,203, New Hampshire Gazette, no. 104, and Boston News Letter, no. 2,932. Abercromby to Pitt, 25 Nov. 1758. Lieutenant Macauley to Horatio Gates, 30 Aug. 1758. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 30 Oct. 1758.  Pouchot, I. 162. Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760.]