Prideaux safely reached Niagara, and laid siege to it.  It was a strong fort, lately rebuilt in regular form by an excellent officer, Captain Pouchot, of the battalion of Bearn, who commanded it.  It stood where the present fort stands, in the angle formed by the junction of the River Niagara with Lake Ontario, and was held by about six hundred men, well supplied with provisions and munitions of war.[736] Higher up the river, a mile and a half above the cataract, there was another fort, called Little Niagara, built of wood, and commanded by the half-breed officer, Joncaire-Chabert, who with his brother, Joncaire-Clauzonne, and a numerous clan of Indian relatives, had so long thwarted the efforts of Johnson to engage the Five Nations in the English cause.  But recent English successes had had their effect.  Joncaire’s influence was waning, and Johnson was now in Prideaux’s camp with nine hundred Five Nation warriors pledged to fight the French.  Joncaire, finding his fort untenable, burned it, and came with his garrison and his Indian friends to reinforce Niagara.[737]

[Footnote 736:  Pouchot says 515, besides 60 men from Little Niagara; Vaudreuil gives a total of 589.]

[Footnote 737:  Pouchot, II. 52, 59. Proces de Bigot, Cadet, et autres, Memoire pour Daniel de Joncaire-Chabert.]

Pouchot had another resource, on which he confidently relied.  In obedience to an order from Vaudreuil, the French population of the Illinois, Detroit, and other distant posts, joined with troops of Western Indians, had come down the Lakes to recover Pittsburg, undo the work of Forbes, and restore French ascendency on the Ohio.  Pittsburg had been in imminent danger; nor was it yet safe, though General Stanwix was sparing no effort to succor it.[738] These mixed bands of white men and red, bushrangers and savages, were now gathered, partly at Le Boeuf and Venango, but chiefly at Presquisle, under command of Aubry, Ligneris, Marin, and other partisan chiefs, the best in Canada.  No sooner did Pouchot learn that the English were coming to attack him than he sent a messenger to summon them all to his aid.[739]

[Footnote 738:  Letters of Colonel Hugh Mercer, commanding at Pittsburg, January-June, 1759.  Letters of Stanwix, May-July, 1759.  Letter from Pittsburg, in Boston News Letter, No. 3,023. Narrative of John Ormsby.]

[Footnote 739:  Pouchot, II. 46.]

The siege was begun in form, though the English engineers were so incompetent that the trenches, as first laid out, were scoured by the fire of the place, and had to be made anew.[740] At last the batteries opened fire.  A shell from a coehorn burst prematurely, just as it left the mouth of the piece, and a fragment striking Prideaux on the head, killed him instantly.  Johnson took command in his place, and made up in energy what he lacked in skill.  In two or three weeks the fort was in extremity.  The rampart was breached, more than a hundred of the garrison were killed or disabled, and the rest were exhausted with want of sleep.  Pouchot watched anxiously for the promised succors; and on the morning of the twenty-fourth of July a distant firing told him that they were at hand.