FORE:The events on land were very different. Abercrombie, like General Braddock, advanced with all the careless presumption of a second-rate general. The grand object was to reduce Fort Ticonderoga, built on a neck of land between Lakes George and Champlain. At the landing, Lord Howe, one of the best officers, was killed, but they drove back the French, and advanced on the fort, which was of great strength, defended by a garrison of four thousand men, commanded by the Marquis de Montcalm, the Commander-in-Chief of the Canadians, himself. Montcalm had raised a breastwork eight feet high, and made in front of it a barricade of felled trees with their branches outwards. Abercrombie, with a foolish confidence, advanced right upon this barricade, without waiting for the coming up of his artillery, which was detained by the badness of the roads. With a reckless disregard of the lives of his men, he commanded them to attempt to storm these defences, and after fighting with the usual courage of Englishmen for several hours, and two thousand of them being slaughtered, it was found that their efforts were useless, and they were ordered to retire. Brigadier Forbes, who had been sent against Fort Dupuesne, an attempt so disastrous to both Washington and Braddock, executed his task with the utmost promptitude and success. Forbes took possession of it on the 25th of November, and, in compliment to the great Minister under whose auspices they fought, named it Fort Pitt, since grown from a solitary fort into Pittsburg.The new Administration took measures to render themselves popular. They advised the king to go down to the House on the 6th of May, and propose a reduction of the army to the extent of ten thousand men, as well as an Act of Grace to include many persons concerned in the late rebellion. Walpole and his friends, on the contrary, did all in their power to embarrass the Government. Lord Oxford was not included in the Act of Indemnity, and it was resolved now by his friends to have his trial brought on. Before this was effected, however, a violent attack was made on Lord Cadogan. As Ambassador at the Hague, he had superintended the embarkation of the Dutch troops sent to aid in putting down the rebellion. He was now charged with having committed gross peculations on that occasion. Shippen led the way in this attack, but Walpole and Pulteney pursued their former colleague with the greatest rancour, and Walpole declaimed against him so furiously that, after a speech of nearly two hours in length, he was compelled to stop by a sudden bleeding at the nose. Stanhope, Craggs, Lechmere, and others defended him; but such was the combination of enemies against him, or rather, against the Ministers, that the motion was only negatived by a majority of ten.
