Johnson had warned Webb of the coming of Montcalm with nearly eight thousand men, including a body of Indians said to be gathered from forty-one tribes. On the 1st of August, while holding a council with the Cherokees at his house, he received news from General Webb that Montcalm was moving down upon Colonel Monro, who with two thousand men occupied the fort and adjoining camp. Johnson at once adjourned the council, and summoning the militia and Mohawks, quickly reached Fort Edward, and begged to be sent to reinforce Monro. The double-minded Webb at first consented, and then ordered him back. Within sound of the cannon, Webb held back his whole force, and sent Monro a note advising him to surrender. Only when his ammunition was nearly exhausted, his heavy cannon burst, three hundred of his men killed or wounded, many others helpless with small-pox, and the outlook hopeless, did Monro surrender. As usual, the Indians, many of them from tribes utterly unused to any control, got at the rum-barrels, and were converted into devils, whom Montcalm in vain endeavoured to control, until after they had butchered scores of Monro’s unarmed people, including women and children. The fort and barracks were burned, and on great heaps of the fuel thus obtained the bodies of the slain were given cremation. Webb, almost scared out of his wits, would have moved southward to West Point, but that Lord Howe, who had arrived with reinforcements, calmed him. Almost as a matter of course, the blame was laid by the British officers and regulars on the provincial troops. This military bigotry, and the inveterate prejudice of the regulars against volunteers had a tremendous effect in making the native-born militia suspect that they could some day do without the supercilious and conceited king’s servants. They saw that most of the hard fighting had been done by militiamen at the front, who, notwithstanding the immense resources of Great Britain, were not properly supported at the right time. They were tired of being led to the slaughter by fussy, incompetent, and often cowardly commanders. They noted, also, that the regulars were mostly kept in garrison, while the militia were sent to the front, where, usually in battle with the Indians, the Americans stood their ground, fighting behind trees, while the handsomely uniformed regulars were flying to the rear. Further yet, the regulars stationed in the forts in the Mohawk Valley were so arrogant and conceited as to look—as the average Englishman is so apt to do—upon the Dutchmen and Germans as a sort of inferior cattle. The consequence was that they were practically useless as defenders.