The sage Lord Loudon heard of this latest disaster while in Albany, and his conduct was characteristic. Eager to find a victim on whom to vent his rage and to bear his own and his officers’ shortcomings, he blamed the Iroquois, and even proposed to make war against them. It was, probably, only by the active persuasion of Johnson that he was turned from his madness. Imagination vainly seeks to picture the results had Loudon, the grand master of Great Britain’s resources, even begun his folly, and broken the peace league which Van Curler had made, Schuyler extended, and Johnson perfected. Had he practically betrayed his country by turning the whole Indian power of the continent over to the French, the history of this country would have been vastly different from that we know. Had Johnson done nothing else than prevent this, he would deserve a high place among the Makers of America. CHAPTER X. THE HEAVEN-BORN GENERAL. IT IS HARD for Americans to realize that the French and Indian War was more costly to Great Britain than was the War of the American Revolution. As matter of fact, the British Government sent a larger total of soldiers and sailors, and spent more blood and treasure in defending the colonies and in wresting North America from the French, than in endeavouring to coerce the revolted colonies. Though in the various attempts at the reduction of Canada, no large armies like those of Burgoyne or Cornwallis were lost by surrender, yet the number of men slaughtered in siege and battle was greater, and the expeditions being in the wilderness were much more costly. To throw a bomb into the Niagara fort was like dropping a globe of silver; to fire canister, like scattering a Danæan shower of guineas; while every effective bullet required an outlay of pounds, as well as of shillings and pence. Before the decision of the long controversy between Latin and Teutonic civilization in America, at the fall of Quebec, another terrible disaster, caused largely by British arrogance and contempt of American experience, remains to be recorded. This time it was to be linked not with the name of Braddock or Loudon, but with that of Abercrombie. Under the quickening touch of the master-hand of Pitt, who knew the topography of America, and had appointed the “young madman” Wolfe to supersede Loudon, Louisburg, Ticonderoga, and Fort Du Quesne were chosen as points of attack. Of the three expeditions planned, Abercrombie was chosen to lead that which was to move to Canada by the great water-way of Eastern New York.