[Footnote 3: They were originally the 62nd or Royal American Regiment of foot. The men were chiefly German and Swiss Protestants, and about one-third of the officers were of the same nationalities. On the disbanding of Shirley's and Pepperell's Regiments, which were numbered 50th and 51st, the Royal Americans became the 60th Regiment. Their motto, 'Celer et audax,' is said, without much authority, to have been first given them by Wolfe.] [Sidenote: _The strength of Canada._] The strength of Canada, on the other hand, consisted in the divisions of her adversaries, the separate grumbling English colonies; in the incompetence of the English Government at home; in the fact that the routes for attack from Canada favoured quick movement from the base; and most of all in the support which the Frenchmen received from the red men, notably from the mission Indians. The Indians went hand in hand with the Canadians; the one and the other loved irregular warfare; the one and the other answered {254} to the call of the Governor of Canada, rather than of the General who looked on war as he had known it in Europe--more scientific, more continuous, better controlled, and more humane than the savage outbursts of killing and plundering which were the product of American backwoods. [Sidenote: _Canadian raid on the route between Albany and Oswego._] As winter turned into spring, in 1756, before war had been proclaimed in Europe, and before Montcalm had come out, the Canadians made a move. The most distant and isolated English outpost was Oswego on Lake Ontario. Its communication with Albany depended on the two little forts which, as told in the last chapter,[4] had been constructed to guard the four miles' portage between the Mohawk river and Wood Creek, the stream which feeds Lake Oneida. Towards the end of March, a party of Canadians and Indians, sent by Vaudreuil and commanded by an officer named De Léry, surprised the fort on the latter river, Fort Bull, killed or captured the small garrison, and destroyed the building with all its contents. The damage was repaired by Shirley, in whose eyes Oswego was of supreme importance, and who, in the winter of 1755, had formulated new schemes for a comprehensive campaign against Canada, including as before the reduction of the French forts on Lake Ontario. [Footnote 4: See above, pp. 246, 247.] [Sidenote: _Weakness of Oswego._] [Sidenote: _Colonel Bradstreet._]