No. 112.1 669 



the Revolution. The military spirit was here enkindled, that in 

 after 3'ears blazed at Bunker Hill, and Bennington and Saratoga; 

 and here, amid victory and defeat, the science and tactics of Eu- 

 rope were inculcated and diffused throughout the broad colonies. 



If Washington was taught on the banks of the Monongahela to 

 lead armies and to achieve independence to his country, Putnam 

 and Stark, Pomeroy and Prescott, amid the forests and morasses 

 of Horicon and Champlain, and beneath the walls f Ticonderoga, 

 were formed to guide and conquer in the battles of freedom. 

 Human wisdom, in her philosophy, may pause to contemplate 

 these striking and singular coincidences, and to tiace these causes 

 to their momentous results ; but the eye of faith will reverence 

 them as the hidden workings of an overruling and beneficent 

 Providence, who in these events was unfolding the elements and 

 forming the agents of a mighty revolution, destined not only to 

 sever a kingdom, but to change the course of human events. 



An ordinance of the King of France had authorized as early as 

 1G7G, the issuing of grants of lands situated in Canada. In ac- 

 cordance with this power and assuming the sovereignty of France 

 over the valley; of Lake Champlain, the government of Canada 

 had caused a survey to be made of the lake and its contiguous 

 territory, the year succeeding the erection of the works at Crown 

 Point. Many of the names of the headlands, islands and other 

 topographical features of the lake, which are still perpetuated, 

 are derived from that survey. In their descriptive force and 

 beauty, they almost rival the euphony and appropriateness of the 

 Indian nomenclature. A map and chart based upon that survey, 

 was published at Montreal in 1748, and has been scarcely sur- 

 passed by any subsecpiently made, in its scientific aspect or minute- 

 ness and accuracy. Kxtensive grants, under the ordinance of 

 1676, upon botli sides of tlie lake, are delineated u]K»n that ni<ip. 

 A Seigniory was granted to the Sieur Robert, the royal storekeeper 

 at Montreal, in June, 1737. This fjrant, which seems to have 

 been the only one issued fiU' land wiihin the limits of tlie county 

 of Essex, embraced ''three leagues in front by two leagues in 

 depth', on the west side of Lake Champlain, taking, in going 

 down, one league below the River Boquet, and in going up, two 



