[Footnote 740:  Rutherford to Haldimand, 14 July, 1759. Prideaux was extremely disgusted. Prideaux to Haldimand, 13 July, 1759.  Allan Macleane, of the Highlanders, calls the engineers “fools and blockheads, G—­d d—­n them.” Macleane to Haldimand, 21 July, 1759.]

Aubry and Ligneris, with their motley following, had left Presquisle a few days before, to the number, according to Vaudreuil, of eleven hundred French and two hundred Indians.[741] Among them was a body of colony troops; but the Frenchmen of the party were chiefly traders and bushrangers from the West, connecting links between civilization and savagery; some of them indeed were mere white Indians, imbued with the ideas and morals of the wigwam, wearing hunting-shirts of smoked deer-skin embroidered with quills of the Canada porcupine, painting their faces black and red, tying eagle feathers in their long hair, or plastering it on their temples with a compound of vermilion and glue.  They were excellent woodsmen, skilful hunters, and perhaps the best bush-fighters in all Canada.

[Footnote 741:  “Il n’y avoit que 1,100 Francois et 200 sauvages.” Vaudreuil au Ministre, 30 Oct. 1759. Johnson says “1,200 men, with a number of Indians.” Johnson to Amherst, 25 July, 1759. Portneuf, commanding at Presquisle, wrote to Pouchot that there were 1,600 French and 1,200 Indians.  Pouchot, II. 94.  A letter from Aubry to Pouchot put the whole at 2,500, half of them Indians. Historical Magazine, V., Second Series, 199.]

When Pouchot heard the firing, he went with a wounded artillery officer to the bastion next the river; and as the forest had been cut away for a great distance, they could see more than a mile and a half along the shore.  There, by glimpses among trees and bushes, they descried bodies of men, now advancing, and now retreating; Indians in rapid movement, and the smoke of guns, the sound of which reached their ears in heavy volleys, or a sharp and angry rattle.  Meanwhile the English cannon had ceased their fire, and the silent trenches seemed deserted, as if their occupants were gone to meet the advancing foe.  There was a call in the fort for volunteers to sally and destroy the works; but no sooner did they show themselves along the covered way than the seemingly abandoned trenches were thronged with men and bayonets, and the attempt was given up.  The distant firing lasted half an hour, then ceased, and Pouchot remained in suspense; till, at two in the afternoon, a friendly Onondaga, who had passed unnoticed through the English lines, came to him with the announcement that the French and their allies had been routed and cut to pieces.  Pouchot would not believe him.