killed. * The French were repulsed with a loss of three hundred killed and one hundred and forty-eight taken prisoners. The English columns were so much broken, confused, and fatigued, that Abercrombie marched them back to the landing-place on Lake George, to bivouac for the night. Early the next morning Colonel Bradstreet advanced and took possession of the saw-mills, near the present village of Ticonderoga, which the enemy had abandoned. Abercrombie sent an engineer to reconnoiter, and on his reporting that the works were unfinished and might easily be taken, the British troops were again put in motion toward the fortress. As they approached the lines, the French, who were completely July 8, 1758 sheltered behind their breast-works, opened a heavy discharge of artillery upon them, but they pressed steadily forward in the face of the storm, determined to assault the works, and endeavor to carry them by sword and bayonet. They found them so well defended by a deep _abatis_, that it was almost impossible to reach them; yet, amid the galling fire of the enemy, the English continued for four hours striving to cut their way through the limbs and bushes to the breast-works with their swords. Some did, indeed, mount the parapet, but in a moment they were slain. Scores of Britons were mowed down at every discharge of cannon. Perceiving the rapid reduction of his army, Abercrombie at last sounded a retreat, and, without being pursued by the French, the English fell back to their encampment at the foot of Lake George, from which the wounded were sent to Fort Edward and to Albany The English loss was nearly two thousand men and twenty-five hundred stand of arms. Never did troops show bolder courage or more obstinate persistence against fearful obstacles. The whole army seemed emulous to excel, but the Scotch Highland regiment of Lord John Murray was foremost in the conflict, and suffered the severest loss. One half of the privates and twenty-five officers were slain on the spot or badly wounded. Failing in this attempt, Abercrombie changed his plans. He dispatched General Stanwix to build a fort near the head- waters of the Mohawk, at the site of the present village of Rome, Oneida county. Colonel Bradstreet, at his own urgent solicitation, was ordered, with three thousand troops, mostly provincials, to proceed by the way of Oswego and Lake Ontario, to attack Fort Frontenac, where Kingston, in Upper Canada, now stands; and himself, with the rest of the army, returned to Albany. ** While misfortunes were attending the English under the immediate command of Abercrombie, and the power and influence of the French were gaining strength on the lake, a British force was closely beleaguering Louisburg, on the Island of Cape Breton, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, then the strongest fortification in America, and the rallying point of French power on this Continent. Early in 1758 Admiral Boscawen sailed fromMay 28.