The First Battle of Lake Champlain. 



125 



shot from the woods, which astonished them anew to such a degree 

 that, seeing their chiefs dead, they lost courage and took to flight, 

 abandoning their camp and fort and fleeing into the woods, whither 

 I pursued them, killing still more of them, and took ten or twelve 

 prisoners. The remainder escaped with the wounded. Fifteen or 

 sixteen were wounded on our side with arrow shots, but they were soon 



"After gaining the victory our men amused themselves by taking 

 a great quantity of Indian corn and some meal from their enemies; 

 also their armor, which they had left behind that they might run 

 better. After feasting sumptuously, dancing and singing, we returned 

 three hours after with the prisoners. The spot where this attack took 

 place is in latitude 43° and some minutes, and the lake was called 

 Lake Champlain." 



In his explanation of the map accompanying his account of the 

 battle, he says: " The canoes of the enemy were made of oak bark, 

 each holding ten, fifteen or eighteen men/' 



This is Cham plain's account, in fall, of the battle, and he says, farther 

 on, that they returned down the lake eight leagues the same day and 

 halted toward evening; also, that the Montagnais had scalped all those 

 they had killed in battle. 



Where is the " cape which extends into the lake on the western 

 bank," that Champlain describes as the scene of the first battle of Lake 

 Champlain? Nearly all, if not quite all, authorities agree that it was 

 at or near the spot where Fort Ticonderoga was afterward built, and 

 where its ruins now stand. Watson says (Hist. Essex Co., p. 18): 

 " The place was evidently in the vicinity of Ticonderoga." Thomp- 

 son (Hist. Vt., p. 2) locates the spot on the shore of Lake George. 

 Palmer says (Hist. Lake Champlain, p. 22): "The engagement 

 took place somewhere between Crown Point and Lake George, prob- 

 ably at Ticonderoga." O'Callaghan (Doc. Hist. N. Y., vol. 3, p. 9, 

 foot-note) says: "The reference in Champlain's map locates this 

 engagement between Lake George and Crown Point, probably in what 

 is now the town of Ticonderoga." Brodhead (Hist. N". Y. vol. 1, p. 

 18) says: "On the map which accompanies his work, Champlain 

 marks the place where the Iroquois were defeated as a promontory a 

 little to the northeast of a small lake by which one goes to the 

 Iroquois, after having passed Lake Champlain. These particulars 

 seem to identify Ticonderoga as the spot where the first encounter 

 took place between the white men and the red men on the soil of 



