running fire until his leaky and disabled vessels could do no more; on which, driving them aground, and landing his marines, he set them on fire, escaped to the shore, and so made his way through the woods to Crown Point, and thence to Ticonderoga. Carleton lost no time in reducing the former fortress; but his delay in building the squadron had made it now too late to carry out his projected advance to the Hudson, and he did no more, but returned to Canada, apparently satisfied with having destroyed all hopes of exciting a revolt among the French, or of shutting out the royal troops from the St Lawrence. In the spring of the following year, Burgoyne, who had been to England in the mean time, superseded Carleton as governor of Canada, who, though an efficient officer and an accomplished gentleman, seems to have given some momentary dissatisfaction to the ministry. It was the ambition of the new governor to force a passage to the Hudson, and, by the aid of Sir Henry Clinton, to open a direct communication with New York, seizing the intermediate posts, and so cutting off all connexion between New England and the army in the south. This plan, had it been successful, would probably have put an end to the war; and as nothing less than so splendid a result was the object of Burgoyne's expedition, it may be imagined with what anxiety it was watched by the Congress, and prepared for by the vigilance of Washington. In June 1777, the new governor ascended Lake Champlain. He was attended by a powerful armament, consisting, besides the regular troops, of Canadian rangers, German mercenaries, and a ferocious retinue of savages. He immediately invested the fort at Ticonderoga, by land and water, bringing his gun-boats and frigates to a point just beyond the range of the guns of the fort, and sending part of his troops to the eastern shore of the lake. Over against the fortress, a little to the south, and hardly a thousand yards distant, rises the inaccessible sugar-loaf summit of Mount Defiance, and with great energy the British general immediately commenced the construction of a road up the rough sides of this mountain. St Clair, who was in command of the fort, and prepared to defend it vigorously, having received special instructions from Congress, and knowing himself to be watched with the deepest anxiety by the whole country, looked up one morning, and found the summit occupied by a strong battery, under command of Burgoyne himself, who had dragged his cannon up the precipitous ascent, with an activity and enterprise worthy of Wolfe. It was now planted where it could, at any moment, pour death and destruction into the fort, from which not a ball could be returned with any effect. The heights of Mount Defiance, as the name imports, had been supposed to defy escalade; and the dismay of St Clair may be imagined when he thus beheld his garrison not only exposed to the fire, but also to the jeers of the enemy, who could observe his every manœuvre, and count