While Prideaux and Johnson were operating against Niagara, Amherst had begun his northward movement. He had carefully secured his communications by fortified posts, and, before June ended, had gathered a force of 11,000 men at the southern end of Lake George, the scene of so many encampments and so much fighting. On July 21 he embarked his troops, followed the line of Abercromby's advance in the previous year, found the famous entrenchment, which had foiled Abercromby's troops, deserted, but the fort itself still held. On the evening of the twenty-sixth, however, deserters brought news that the garrison was in retreat, and shortly afterwards a loud explosion told its own tale. Ticonderoga had been abandoned and blown up. The French commander opposed to Amherst was Bourlamaque, and his orders were to fall back before the English to the outlet of Lake Champlain, where a small island in the Richelieu river, the Île aux Noix, could easily be defended, blocking the enemy's advance on Montreal. He had a force of over 3,000 men, the rearguard of which, consisting of 400 men, had held Ticonderoga for two or three days, to cover the retreat of the main force. On August 1, Crown Point was found to be abandoned also, and the way north, down Lake Champlain, lay open to the invaders of Canada. Amherst entered Crown Point on August 4, and on the following day wrote to Pitt: 'I shall take fast hold of it, and not neglect at the same time to forward every measure I can to enable me to pass Lake Champlain.' [Sidenote: _Amherst's inaction._] Now was the time for the quick aggressive movement which Wolfe practised and preached, but the Commander-in-Chief fell miserably short of the occasion. August went by, and September, but Robert Rogers and his Rangers, who harried the French Indians on the river St. Francis {297} north-east of Lake Champlain, were the only fighting members of Amherst's army. Time was spent in constructing a new fort at Crown Point; in making a road eastward from Lake Champlain, opposite Crown Point, to the Connecticut river; in building vessels to overpower four little armed sloops, which represented French naval enterprise on the lake. In the middle of October Amherst embarked his troops to go north, met with wind and storm, returned to Crown Point, and made all snug for the winter. This was not the way to conquer Canada: the real work was done by another man at another place. While the main English army loitered on the shores of Lake Champlain, Wolfe had laid down his life in victory on the Plains of Abraham. [Illustration: Map of Quebec] [Sidenote: _The harbour of Quebec._] [Sidenote: _The northern bank of the St. Lawrence._]