The aim of France was to connect Canada with Louisiana by a chain of forts, and keep the English penned up in their eastern provinces without room to expand.  The northern links of this chain were Fort Ticonderoga, just where the waters of Lake George join those of Champlain; Fort Niagara, which commanded the lakes; and Fort Duquesne, at the head of the Ohio, the key to the great Mississippi.

It was a gigantic scheme, and one full of ambition; there was one immense drawback.  The French emigrants of the western world numbered only about one hundred and eighty thousand souls, whilst the English colonies had their two millions of inhabitants.  The French could only accomplish their ends if the Indians would become and remain their allies.  The English, though equally anxious to keep on good terms with the dusky denizens of the woods, who could be such dangerous foes, had less need to use them in fight, as, if they chose to combine and act in concert, they could throw an army into the field which must overpower any the French could mass.

But the weakness of the provinces hitherto had been this lack of harmony.  They would not act in concert.  They were forever disputing, one province with another, and each at home with its governor.  The home ministry sent out men unfit for the work of command.  Military disasters followed one after the other.  Washington and Braddock had both been overthrown in successive attempts upon Fort Duquesne; and now the English Fort of Oswego, their outpost at Lake Ontario, was lost through mismanagement and bad generalship.

Canada owned a centralized government.  She could send out her men by the various routes to the points of vantage where the struggle lay.  England had an enormous border to protect, and no one centre of operations to work from.  She was hampered at every turn by internal jealousies, and by incompetent commanders.  Braddock had been a good soldier, but he could not understand forest fighting, and had raged against the Virginian men, who were doing excellent work firing at the Indians from behind trees, and meeting their tactics by like ones.  Braddock had driven them into rank by beating them with the flat of his sword, only to see them shot down like sheep.  Blunders such as this had marked the whole course of the war; and misfortune after misfortune had attended the English arms upon the mainland, although in Acadia they had been more successful.

These things Stark and his little band heard from the Dutch of Albany; they also heard that the English were encamped at the southern end of Lake George, at Forts Edward and William Henry, their commander being John Winslow, whose name was becoming known and respected as that of a brave and humane soldier, who had carried through a difficult piece of business in Acadia with as much consideration and kindliness as possible.

Now he was in command of the English force watching the movements of the French at Ticonderoga; here also were Rogers and his Rangers to be found.  They had marched into Winslow’s camp, it was said, some few months earlier, proffering their services; and there they had since remained, scouting up and down the lake upon skates or snowshoes, snatching away prisoners from the Indian allies, or from the very walls of the fort itself, and intercepting provisions sent down Lake Champlain for the use of the French.