Читать книгу Historic Handbook of the Northern Tour - Francis Parkman - Страница 12

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For more than a century after the death of Jogues, Lakes George and Champlain were the great route of war parties between Canada and the British Colonies. Courcelles came this way in 1666 to lay waste the Mohawk towns; and Mantet and Sainte-Hélène, in 1690, to destroy Schenectady in the dead of winter; while, in the next year, Major Schuyler took the same course as he advanced into Canada to retort the blow. Whenever there was war between France and England, these two lakes became the scene of partisan conflicts, in which the red men took part with the white, some as allies of the English, and some as allies of the French. When at length the final contest took place for the possession of the continent, the rival nations fiercely disputed the mastery of this great wilderness thoroughfare, and the borders of Lake George became the scene of noteworthy conflicts. The first of these was in 1755, the year of Braddock's defeat, when Shirley, governor of Massachusetts, set on foot an expedition for the capture of Crown Point, a fort which the French had built on Lake Champlain more than twenty years before.