Nevertheless his tale was true.  Johnson, besides his Indians, had with him about twenty-three hundred men, whom he was forced to divide into three separate bodies,—­one to guard the bateaux, one to guard the trenches, and one to fight Aubry and his band.  This last body consisted of the provincial light infantry and the pickets, two companies of grenadiers, and a hundred and fifty men of the forty-sixth regiment, all under command of Colonel Massey.[742] They took post behind an abattis at a place called La Belle Famille, and the Five Nation warriors placed themselves on their flanks.  These savages had shown signs of disaffection; and when the enemy approached, they opened a parley with the French Indians, which, however, soon ended, and both sides raised the war-whoop.  The fight was brisk for a while; but at last Aubry’s men broke away in a panic.  The French officers seem to have made desperate efforts to retrieve the day, for nearly all of them were killed or captured; while their followers, after heavy loss, fled to their canoes and boats above the cataract, hastened back to Lake Erie, burned Presquisle, Le Boeuf, and Venango, and, joined by the garrisons of those forts, retreated to Detroit, leaving the whole region of the upper Ohio in undisputed possession of the English.

[Footnote 742:  Johnson to Amherst, 25 July, 1759. Knox, II. 135. Captain Delancey to——­, 25 July, 1759. This writer commanded the light infantry in the fight.]

At four o’clock on the day of the battle, after a furious cannonade on both sides, a trumpet sounded from the trenches, and an officer approached the fort with a summons to surrender.  He brought also a paper containing the names of the captive French officers, though some of them were spelled in a way that defied recognition.  Pouchot, feigning incredulity, sent an officer of his own to the English camp, who soon saw unanswerable proof of the disaster; for here, under a shelter of leaves and boughs near the tent of Johnson, sat Ligneris, severely wounded, with Aubry, Villiers, Montigny, Marin, and their companions in misfortune,—­in all, sixteen officers, four cadets, and a surgeon.[743]

[Footnote 743:  Johnson gives the names in his private Diary, printed in Stone, Life of Johnson, II. 394.  Compare Pouchot, II. 105, 106. Letter from Niagara, in Boston Evening Post, No. 1,250. Vaudreuil au Ministre, 30 Oct. 1759.]

Pouchot had now no choice but surrender.  By the terms of the capitulation, the garrison were to be sent prisoners to New York, though honors of war were granted them in acknowledgment of their courageous conduct.  There was a special stipulation that they should be protected from the Indians, of whom they stood in the greatest terror, lest the massacre of Fort William Henry should be avenged upon them.  Johnson restrained his dangerous allies, and, though the fort was pillaged, no blood was shed.