The Virginia Gazette

May 18. Last evening arrived here John Brown, Esq; from Ticonderoga, express to the General Congress, from whom we learn, that on the beginning of this instant, a company of about fifty men, from Connecticut, and the western part of Massachusetts, and joined by upwards of one hundred from Bennington, in New York government, and the adjacent towns, proceeded to the eastern side of Lake Champlain; and on the night before the 11th current, crossed the lake with 85 men (not being able to obtain craft to transport the rest) and about day-break invested the fort, whose gate, contrary to expectation, they found shut, but the wicket open, through which, with the Indian war whoop, all that could entered one by one, others scaling the wall on both sides of the gate, and instantly secured and disarmed the centries, and pressed into the parade, where they found the hollow square; but immediately quitting that order, they rushed into the several barracks on three sides of the fort, and seized on the garrison, consisting of two officers, and upwards of forty privates, whom they brought out, disarmed, put under guard, and have since sent prisoners to Hartford, in Connecticut. All this was performed in about ten minutes, without the loss of a life, or a drop of blood on our side, and but very little on that of the King's troops. In the fort were found about thirty barrels of flour, a few ditto of pork, seventy odd chests of leaden ball, computed at three hundred tons, about ten or twelve barrels of powder in bad condition, near two hundred pieces of ordnance of all sizes, from eighteen pounders downwards, at Ticonderoga and Crownpoint, which last place, being held only by a corporal and eight men, falls of course into our hands.

By this sudden expedition, planned by some principal persons in the four neighbouring colonies, that important pass is now in the hands of the Americans, where we trust the wisdom of the GRAND CONTINENTAL CONGRESS will take effectual measures to secure it, as it may be depended on that Administration means to form an army in Canada, composed of British regulars; French, and Indians, to attack the colonies on that side.

Mr. Brown brought intercepted letters from Lieut. Malcolm Fraser, to his friends in New England, from which appear that General Carleton has almost unlimited powers, civil and military; and has issued orders for raising a Canadian regiment, in which Mr. Fraser observes, the officers find difficulty, as the common people are by no means fond of the service. He likewise remarks that all the King's European subjects are disaffected at the partial preference given to the state converts to loyalty, as he phrases it, to their utter exclusion from all confidence, or even common civility. Matters are indeed in such a situation, that many if not most of the merchants talk of leaving the province.
*A party of the 26th, commanded by Capt. de la Place.
Mr. Brown also relates that two regular officers of the 26th regiment, now in Canada, applied to two Indians, one a head warrior of the Caughanawaga tribe, to go out with them on a hunt to the south and east of the rivers St. Lawrence and Sorel, and pressing the Indians further and further on said course, they at length arrived at Cohoes, where the Indians say they were stopped and interrogated by the inhabitants, to whom they pretended they were only on a hunt, which the inhabitants (as the Indians told Mr. Brown) replied must be false, as no hunters used silver (bright) barrelled guns. However, the Cohoes people dismissed them all; and when they returned into the woods, the Indian warrior insisted on knowing what their real intention was, and they told him that it was to reconnoitre the woods, to find a passage for an army to march to the assistance of the King's friends in Boston. The Indian asked, where they could get the army? They answered, in Canada, and that the Indians in the upper castles would join them. The Chief on this expressed resentment, that he, being one of the head men of the Caughanawaga tribe, should never have been consulted in the affair. But Mr. Brown presumes the aversion of this honest fellow and his friends to their schemes, was the reason of their being kept from their knowledge.

The conductors of this grand expedition are to be Monsieur St. Luke le Corne, the villain who let loose the Indians on the prisoners at Fort William Henry, and one of his associates.

Oh, George, what tools art thou obliged to make use of!