well as was possible in a sandy ground, in order to serve as a frontier on that side of Canada, and hinder the English from coming down by the River Richelieu into the River St. Lawrence, by which means in a very short time they might have been in possession of Montreal and Three Rivers,—a much easier way than by Lake Ontario, which is much longer and full of chicares (?) by the rapids in the St. Lawrence, and prolong their operations;—a very great advantage in a country where there are violent frosts during seven months of the year. This island is about twelve hundred fathoms long, and from a hundred to two hundred broad. The entrenchments traced and conducted by M. Bourlamarque are regular, and a proof of his superior knowledge in fortifications. He barred the two branches of the river which formed the island with staccados, or chains of big trees, linked to one another at their ends by strong rings and circles of iron. This prevented the English boats from Lake Champlain to pass the island in the night, to reach Montreal. But for the staccados the island must have been taken by them before they could proceed any further.

Some Iroquois, of the Five Nations, informed M. de Vaudreuil at Montreal, that General Amherst was marching to invade Canada with a very considerable army by the rapids and Lake Ontario, whilst General Murray had orders to come up the river with his army from Quebec, and join Gen. Amherst at Montreal. But they had no knowledge of a third body of troops, about four thousand men, that came by Lake Champlain, in the month of July, five weeks before the arrival of the other two armies at Montreal, and besieged Isle aux Noix with a very considerable train of artillery, cannon, mortars, &c., in profusion.

They erected five batteries of guns on the south side of the river, with a bomb battery, which rendered our trenches useless, as they had a sight of us everywhere, back, face and sideways, and so near us that at the south staccado they killed several of our soldiers by their musket shots.

The sandy ground protected us from the effect of their shells, which they threw upon us in great numbers, with a continual fire from their gun batteries.

After sixteen days' siege with a most violent cannonade, without a moment's interruption, M. Nogaire, an officer in the Regiment of Royal Roussillon, came to us from Montreal, having crossed directly through the woods, with some Indians for his guides, with two letters from De Bougainville, one of which was from him to Vaudreuil, and the other from M. de Levis. It was a very critical conjuncture, having only two days' provision for the garrison, which had subsisted until the arrival of the English troops by means of fishing-nets, that river abounding with the most delicious fish, with seven or eight oxen, which had been kept as a reserve and killed by the enemy's cannon. M. de Vaudreuil's letter contained a permission to M. de Bougainville to capitulate or retire from the island if it was possible. M. de Levis' letter was a positive order to defend that post to the last extremity. De Bougainville, notwithstanding his genius, good sense and learning, with personal courage, and who lacked only taste for the study of the art of war to distinguish himself, was nevertheless put to a nonplus how to act from the contradictory orders he received. In this dilemma he shewed me the letters, asking at the same time my advice; and my answer was:—"That in two days famine must oblige us to surrender to the enemy at discretion. That the reinforcements of a thousand men at Montreal might be of the greatest importance, and help to make a good countenance when the English army had advanced in the neighborhood of it. That it was M. de Vaudreuil who commanded-in-chief in Canada, and not M. de Levis; and that there was yet a possibility of retiring with the garrison towards the north side of the island, where the swampy ground upon the border of the river had hindered the English from establishing a post." De Bougainville immediately decided for a retreat, which was executed and combined with equal justness; and the success answered exactly to the prudence, wisdom and good conduct that De Bougainville exhibited in preparing for it. It was then about ten in the morning when Nogaire arrived with the Indians, who—not accustomed to such a terrible fire as was at that moment poured forth by the English batteries, very different from their way of fighting behind trees—were not at all at ease, and furiously impatient to get out of the island. The hour of retreat was settled for ten that night.

The north shore of Isle aux Noix, on the opposite side of the river, was marshy to the distance of three hundred paces from the river, covered with small trees where there was a rising ground, and there was no English post nearer to it than at the Prairie de Boileau, distant half a mile down the river, so that the locality where the river was fordable was a little below the north staccados. De Bougainville adopted every prudent measure imaginable to achieve success. He ordered all the boats to be mended and put in condition to be used at a moment's warning. He also ordained that the boats, bark canoes, and punts hewn out of a large tree, be removed a certain distance from the river side, lest some soldier should desert and apprise the English of his design, such as had happened from the posts near Quebec. He commanded that all the garrison should be in order of battle at ten at night, all observing a profound silence, without the least clashing of arms or other noise, and be in readiness to march. He ordered M. le Borgne, an officer in the colonial troops, to remain on the island with a detachment of forty men, to keep up a smart fire from our battery, which consisted of seven or eight pieces of cannon, during the time we were employed in passing the river, in order to hinder the English from hearing us in our operations, and to continue firing whilst ammunition lasted, and to conceal our retreat as long as it was possible to do so.

We began to cross the river in two lighters, with some small boats, about ten at night. They plied continually to and fro until midnight, when all had crossed the river without the enemy perceiving or even suspecting our operation, although so near to us were their posts on their left that we heard distinctly their voices. All was executed without the least noise, disorder, or confusion—a rare occurrence on such an occasion. Le Borgne acted well, and at the same time economized his ammunition so well that he had wherewith to fire upon the English at intervals until one in the morning. Imagining us then to be near Montreal, he hoisted the white flag to capitulate, and the English, not having the smallest notion of our retreat, granted him immediately very honorable terms. We had eighty men killed or wounded during the siege—a very inconsiderable loss for a cannonade of sixteen days' duration, from five batteries, besides a bomb battery, without an instant's intermission. Had it been a stony instead of a sandy ground, we must have lost above one-half of the garrison, and could not have resisted so long.

So soon as everyone had passed the river, we set out for Montreal, crossing through the woods, which, in a straight line, is only eight leagues from Isle aux Noix, always half running one after the other, after having marched in this manner, from midnight until twelve at noon, over fens, swamps, mosses, and sinking often up to the waist in marshy ground, without reposing or halting one minute. Instead of being near Montreal, as we imagined, we were thunderstruck on finding ourselves, by the fault of our guides, to be only at the distance of half a league from Isle aux Noix: our guide, not knowing the road through the woods, had caused us to turn round continually for twelve hours without