1734-1763.] SIR WILLIAM JOHNSON: 91 



found another favorite in the person of Molly 

 Brant, sister of the celebrated Mohawk war-chief, 

 whose black eyes and laughing face caught his 

 fancy, as, fluttering with ribbons, she galloped past 

 him at a muster of the Tryon county militia. 



Johnson's importance became so conspicuous, 

 that when the French war broke out in 1755, he 

 was made a major general ; and, soon after, the 

 colonial troops under his command gained the 

 battle of Lake George against the French forces 

 of Baron Dieskau. For this success, for which 

 however he was entitled to little credit, he was 

 raised to the rank of baronet, and rewarded with a 

 gift of five thousand pounds from the king. About 

 this time, he was appointed superintendent of In- 

 dian affairs for the northern tribes, a station in 

 which he did signal service to the country. In 

 1759, when General Prideaux was killed by the 

 bursting of a cohorn in the trenches before Niag- 

 ara, Johnson succeeded to his command, routed the 

 French in another pitched battle, and soon raised 

 the red cross of England on the ramparts of the 

 fort. After the peace of 1763, he lived for many 

 years at Johnson Hall, constantly enriched by the 

 increasing value of his vast estate, and surrounded 

 by a hardy Highland tenantry, devoted to his in- 

 terests ; but when the tempest which had long 

 been brewing seemed at length about to break, and 

 signs of a speedy rupture with the mother country 

 thickened with every day, he stood wavering in 

 an agony of indecision, divided between his loy- 

 alty to the sovereign who was the source of all his 



