[Footnote 732:  Amherst to Pitt, 22 Oct. 1759.  This letter, which is in the form of a journal, covers twenty-one folio pages.]

Meanwhile news had come from Prideaux and the Niagara expedition.  That officer had been ordered to ascend the Mohawk with five thousand regulars and provincials, leave a strong garrison at Fort Stanwix, on the Great Carrying Place, establish posts at both ends of Lake Oneida, descend the Onondaga to Oswego, leave nearly half his force there under Colonel Haldimand, and proceed with the rest to attack Niagara.[733] These orders he accomplished.  Haldimand remained to reoccupy the spot that Montcalm had made desolate three years before; and, while preparing to build a fort, he barricaded his camp with pork and flour barrels, lest the enemy should make a dash upon him from their station at the head of the St. Lawrence Rapids.  Such an attack was probable; for if the French could seize Oswego, the return of Prideaux from Niagara would be cut off, and when his small stock of provisions had failed, he would be reduced to extremity.  Saint-Luc de la Corne left the head of the Rapids early in July with a thousand French and Canadians and a body of Indians, who soon made their appearance among the stumps and bushes that surrounded the camp at Oswego.  The priest Piquet was of the party; and five deserters declared that he solemnly blessed them, and told them to give the English no quarter.[734] Some valuable time was lost in bestowing the benediction; yet Haldimand’s men were taken by surprise.  Many of them were dispersed in the woods, cutting timber for the intended fort; and it might have gone hard with them had not some of La Corne’s Canadians become alarmed and rushed back to their boats, oversetting Father Piquet on the way.[735] These being rallied, the whole party ensconced itself in a tract of felled trees so far from the English that their fire did little harm.  They continued it about two hours, and resumed it the next morning; when, three cannon being brought to bear on them, they took to their boats and disappeared, having lost about thirty killed and wounded, including two officers and La Corne himself, who was shot in the thigh.  The English loss was slight.

[Footnote 733:  Instructions of Amherst to Prideaux, 17 May, 1759.  Prideaux to Haldimand, 30 June, 1759.]

[Footnote 734:  Journal of Colonel Amherst.]

[Footnote 735:  Pouchot, II. 130. Compare Memoires sur le Canada, 1749-1760; N.Y.  Col.  Docs., VII. 395; and Letter from Oswego, in Boston Evening Post, No. 1,248.]