In 1756, the hateful Choueguen, which had given occasion to the establishment of Toronto as a fortified trading-post, was rased to the ground. Montcalm, who afterwards fell on the Plains of Abraham, had been entrusted with the task of destroying the offensive stronghold of the English on Lake Ontario. He went about the work with some reluctance, deeming the project of the Governor-General, De Vaudreuil, to be rash. Circumstances, however, unexpectedly favoured him; and the garrison of Choueguen, in other words, of Oswego, capitulated. "Never before," said Montcalm, in his report of the affair to the Home Minister, "did 3,000 men, with a scanty artillery, besiege 1,800, there being 2,000 enemies within call, as in the late affair; the party attacked having a superior marine, also, on Lake Ontario. The success gained has been contrary to all expectation. The conduct I followed in this affair," Montcalm continues, "and the dispositions I made, were so much out of the ordinary way of doing things that the audacity we manifested would be counted for rashness in Europe. Therefore, Monseigneur," he adds, "I beg of you as a favour to assure his Majesty that if he should accord to me what I most wish for, employment in regular campaigning, I shall be guided by very different principles." Alas, there was to be no more "regular campaigning" for Montcalm. His eyes were never again to gaze upon the battle fields in Bohemia, Italy and Germany, where, prior to his career in Canada, he had won laurels. The success before Choueguen in 1756 was followed by a more than counterbalancing disaster at Fort Frontenac in 1758. In that year a force of 3,000 men under Col. Bradstreet, detached from the army of Abercromby, stationed near Lake George, made a sudden descent on Fort Frontenac, from the New York side of the water, and captured the place. It was instantly and utterly destroyed, together with a number of vessels which had formed a part of the spoil brought away from Choueguen. On this occasion we find that the cry _Hannibal ante Portas_! was once more fully expected to be heard speedily within the stockade at Toronto. M. de Vaudreuil, the Governor-General, informs the Minister at Paris, M. de Massiac, "that should the English make their appearance at Toronto, I have given orders to burn it at once, and to fall back on Niagara." [Sidenote: 1759.] One more order (the last), issuing from a French source, having reference to Toronto, is to be read in the records of the following year, 1759. M. de Vaudreuil, again in his despatch home, after stating that he had summoned troops from Illinois and Detroit, to rendezvous at Presqu'isle on Lake Erie, adds,--"As those forces will proceed to the relief of Niagara, should the enemy wish to besiege it, I have in like manner sent orders to Toronto, to collect the Mississagués and other natives, to forward them to Niagara." [Sidenote: 1760.]