It was natural enough that King George and his ministers should fail to understand all this, but their mistake was their ruin. If they had understood that Burgoyne's march from Lake Champlain to the Hudson river was to be a march through a country thoroughly hostile, perhaps they would not have been so ready to send him on such a dangerous expedition. It would have been much easier and safer to have sent his army by sea to New York, to reinforce Sir William Howe. Threatening movements might have been made by some of the Canada forces against Ticonderoga, so as to keep Schuyler busy in that quarter; and then the army at New York, thus increased to nearly 40,000 men, might have had a fair chance of overwhelming Washington by sheer weight of numbers. Such a plan might have failed, but it is not likely that it would have led to the surrender of the British army. And if they could have disposed of Washington, the British might have succeeded. It was more necessary for them to get rid of him than to march up and down the valley of the Hudson. But it was not strange that they did not see this as we do. It is always easy enough to be wise after things have happened. Even as it was, if their plan had really been followed, they might have succeeded. If Howe's army had gone up to meet Burgoyne, the history of the year 1777 would have been very different from what it was. We shall presently see why it did not do so. Let us now recount the fortunes of Burgoyne and St. Leger. [Sidenote: Burgoyne takes Ticonderoga, July 5, 1777.] Burgoyne came up Lake Champlain in June, and easily won Ticonderoga, because the Americans had failed to secure a neighbouring position which commanded the fortress. Burgoyne took Ticonderoga from Mount Defiance, just as the Americans would have taken Boston from Bunker Hill, if they had been able to stay there, just as they afterward did take it from Dorchester Heights, and just as Howe took New York after he had won Brooklyn Heights. When you have secured a position from which you can kill the enemy twice as fast as he can kill you, he must of course retire from the situation; and the sooner he goes, the better chance he has of living to fight another day. The same principle worked in all these cases, and it worked with General Howe at Harlem Heights and at White Plains. [Sidenote: Schuyler and Gates.]