THE next day they heard the particulars of the skirmish, for it could scarcely be called a regular engagement, which had proved fatal to the young warrior, whose loss was so deeply felt. The army had crossed lake George in safety, on the 5th of July, and landed without opposition. They proceeded in four columns to Ticonderoga, and displayed a spectacle unprecedented in the New World. An army of sixteen thousand men, regulars and provincials, with a train of artillery, with all the necessary provisions for an active campaign or regular siege, followed by a little fleet of bateaux, pontons, &c. They set out wrong however, by not having Indian guides, who are alone to be depended on in such a place. In a short time the columns fell in upon each other, and occasioned much confusion. While they marched on in this bewildered manner, the advanced guard of the French, which had retired before them, were equally bewildered, and falling in with them in this confusion, a skirmish ensued, in which the French lost above three hundred men, and we, though successful, lost as much as it was possible to lose, in one; for here it was that Lord Howe fell. The fort is a situation of peculiarly natural strength; it lies on a little peninsula, with lake George on one side, and a narrow opening, communicating with lake Champlain, on the other. It is surrounded by water on three sides; and in front there is a swamp, very easily defended: and where it ceased the French had made a breast-work above eight feet high; not content with this, they had felled immense trees on the spot, and laid them heaped on each other, with their branches outward, before their works. In fine, there was no place on earth where aggression was so difficult, and defence so easy, as in these woods; especially when, as in this case, the party to be attacked had great leisure to prepare their defence. On this impenetrable front they had also a line of cannon mounted; while the difficulty of bringing artillery through this swampy ground, near enough to bear upon the place, was very great. This garrison, almost impregnable from situation, was defended by between four and five thousand men. An engineer, sent to reconnoitre, was of opinion that it might be attacked without waiting for the artillery. The fatal resolution was taken without consulting those best qualified to judge. An Indian or native American were here better skilled in the nature of the ground, and probabilities of success. They knew better, in short, what the spade, hatchet, or musket, could or could not do, in such situations, than the most skilful veteran from Europe, however replete with military science. Indeed when system usurps the province of plain sound sense in unknown exigencies, the result is seldom favourable; and this truth was never more fatally demonstrated than in the course of the American war, where an obstinate adherence to regular tactics, which do not bend to time or place,