The following year an expedition against this fort was made by the gallant Abercrombie, who approached it from Lake George, and endeavoured to take it by storm. It is commonly said that Lord Howe fell in this assault before the walls; but in fact he fell the day before, while leading an advanced guard through the forest. Ticonderoga was garrisoned by about four thousand men—French, Canadians, and Indians—and their entrenchments were defended by almost impregnable outworks. The British troops nevertheless made the attack with the greatest intrepidity, and in spite of a murderous fire, forced their way to the walls, and even scaled them, to be immediately cut down. But after repeated assaults, and the loss of two thousand men, General Abercrombie was forced to desist from the attempt; and the French kept the post for a time. It of course became English in the following year, when the French power in America was destroyed by the taking of Quebec. I have already referred to its seizure by the eccentric Ethan Allen, on the breaking out of the American war in 1775. This officer was a native of Vermont, who had been an infidel preacher, and was notorious as the editor of the first deistical publication that ever issued from the American press. The revolution was hardly begun, when the province of Connecticut gave him a commission to capture Ticonderoga. With about three hundred of his hardy “Green-mountain-boys,” he was hastening to the spot, when he fell in with Arnold, bearing a similar commission from Massachusetts. After some dispute as to the command, Allen was made leader, and Arnold his assistant. They arrived by night on the Vermont shore, opposite the fort. There they found a lad who had been accustomed to visit the fort every day with provisions and pedlar’s wares, and crossing by his directions, without noise, they were shown a secret and covered entrance into the fort itself. Climbing up through this passage, Allen led his men within the walls, and drew them up in the area of the fortress, having silenced and disarmed the only sentry who guarded the entrance. The commander of the post, who hardly knew there was war, was actually startled from his sleep, by Allen’s demand for its surrender. The drowsy officer inquired—“By what authority?” And was answered by Allen, half in banter and half in bombastic earnest,—“In the name of the Great Jehovah, and of the Continental Congress!” To one in his straits, with a sword at his naked breast, such a reply, however unintelligible, was sufficiently overpowering, and the post was surrendered without resistance. Its reduction in 1777, by Burgoyne, has been already described; but Ticonderoga is for ever endeared to Americans from the fact, that the flag of their independence was so early given to the breeze from its summit.