So passed another year of failure. John Campbell, Scotsman, otherwise called Earl of Loudon, had been sent out as the representative of Lord Halifax and of the Lords of Trade. Having decided to unite all the colonies under military rule, and force them to support a standing army, they selected this man, who was strong in the idea of colonial subordination, but was vacillating, incapable, vain, wasteful, and lazy. His first winter campaign consisted chiefly in scolding Shirley, and making the Massachusetts governor the scapegoat for his own shortcomings; in disgusting the people of New York by billeting his officers upon them; and in both New York and Boston diligently hastening the separation of the colonies from Great Britain by making a fool of himself generally. With the regulars in winter quarters, the militia dismissed to their homes, the whole frontier, except in the Lake George region, open and exposed, five of the Six Nations practically alienated from the English and already making terms with the French, the outlook was dark. However, the Mohawks were faithful; and Johnson took heart, believing he could yet win and hold the Iroquois. Sending his captains, the two Butlers, and Jellis Fonda to the various castles, and to the fireplace of the Confederacy at Onondaga, he appointed a great council to meet, June 10, 1757. Meanwhile he sent the Mohawks out upon the war-path, and had the satisfaction of hearing of the repulse of the French and the safe defence of the Fort William Henry which he had built two years before at Lake George. Major William Eyre, the ordnance officer who had served the guns so efficiently at the battle of Lake George against Dieskau’s regulars, was in command of the fort, with four hundred men. The commander of the American rangers, with Eyre, was John Stark. The long and dreary winter was nearly over, and Saint Patrick’s Day was at hand. The French knew as well that the Irish soldiers would be drunk on the 18th of March, as Washington knew that the Hessians would be unfit for clear-headed fighting the day after Christmas. Fortunately, through the thoughtfulness of the future hero of Bennington, his own rangers were kept sober by enforced total abstinence, and the Irish had the rum and drunkenness all to themselves. The French force of fifteen hundred regulars, wood-rangers, and savages came down the lakes on the ice, dragging, each man, his sledge containing provisions, arms, and various equipments, among which were three hundred scaling-ladders. They began a furious attack at sunrise on the 18th, expecting easy victory; but Eyre used his artillery with such deadly effect that despite four separate attacks within twenty-four hours, the expedition ended in total failure. Seized with a panic, the besiegers fled, leaving their sledges and much valuable property behind, besides their dead.