These annual meetings of the Red Men, however, had another object besides that of commerce; the events of the preceding year were related and canvassed, and council held upon the conduct of the future. Here feuds were reconciled by the good offices of neutral tribes, old alliances were strengthened, and new ones arranged. In these assemblies, the actual presence of the French gave them an important influence over the deliberations, and colored, to a considerable extent, the policy of the Indian nations. On every account, therefore, the destruction of Fort Frontenac was a great gain to the British cause. It now remained for the Marquis de Vaudreuil to announce the loss of Fort Frontenac to the court of France, and to endeavor to make it appear that he was free from blame in the unfortunate transaction. He determined at all hazards to conceal the fact that his neglecting to forward the required re-enforcements was the direct cause of the disaster. The only mode of escape which suggested itself to his mean mind was to throw the blame upon another; the unhappy commandant, De Noyan, was selected as the victim of his falsehood. To prevent that officer from forwarding to France his own statement of the case, the treacherous governor himself undertook to represent the affair in a light that could not fail to clear De Noyan of all responsibility. The snare was successful; the brave commandant, guileless himself, doubted not the honor of his chief, and blindly trusted him. De Vaudreuil, unmindful alike of truth and justice, threw the whole weight of blame upon his subordinate, and ascribed without scruple the loss of the fort to the pusillanimity of the defenders. De Noyan, when too late, found that he had been cruelly deceived; he appealed in vain, again and again, to the court for redress, and at length retired from the service in which he had met only with treachery and injustice. While Abercromby's intrenchments afforded him complete security, the presence of his great but now useless army gave no protection to the English frontier. The ever active and vigilant Montcalm lost no opportunity of harassing outposts, assailing remote settlements, and intercepting convoys. On the 17th of July, a party of twenty Provincials, with three officers, was destroyed by the French light troops in the neighborhood of Half-way Brook, and ten days afterward, near the same place, 116 wagoners, with their escort of sixteen Rangers, were surprised and horribly massacred, in spite of the late severe warning. At length the general was aroused to exertion: he selected Major Rogers, already famous in partisan warfare, and, with a force of 700 men, sent him to seek the marauders; they, however, effected their escape unharmed. When the British were returning from this vain pursuit, a dispatch arrived from head-quarters, directing them to scour the country to the south and east of Lake Champlain, and retire by the route of Fort Edward.