And use the lake the British army must—not only use it, but gain complete control of it before they could send their army south to join Howe and cut the colonies in two.

There were no roads along the lake; and even if there had been roads, the British would never have dared to march men and supplies along them—for one reason because they would have had to protect their line of march from attack, or had the line cut and be left to starve in the wilderness. Such protection would have required the use of all their troops for guard duty, and left none for fighting. For another reason, they would have been obliged to build a hundred and fifty miles of road, from St. John’s to Ticonderoga, across swamps and rivers, and through trackless forests. The roads would have had to be stout enough to provide passage for artillery, for the carts carrying wines, uniforms and household equipment for their officers, as well as rum, potatoes and mutton for their soldiers, and to stand up under the burden of their Hessians, each of whom weighed, Cap Huff swore, close to half a ton on the hoof.

If, therefore, the British had attempted any such task, they would have been three years at it, and been eaten by mosquitoes a dozen times.

Consequently there was no way out of it: the British had to use the lake for the transportation of their men and supplies, but they couldn’t use it until they controlled it. The only way they could do this was by setting to work at St. John’s, building more ships than we could build, and doing it in a hurry, making it possible for their regiments to strike at us late in the summer, hack us to pieces and march down the Hudson to join Howe.

There was no way of knowing how large a fleet the British would build at St. John’s; but it would certainly be one that would give us plenty of trouble. They had everything with which to work—timber easily transported from the St. Lawrence; a fleet full of sailors on whom to draw; as many ship carpenters as they wanted from Quebec and Montreal and Three Rivers, as well as from their fleet. They had naval stores ready to hand on the King’s ships that had driven us from Sorel, and as many great guns as they wanted, and above all as many naval officers as they needed to command their vessels when built.

… We gave no thought to such things when we pulled our whale-boats into the cove of Wood Creek on that hot June afternoon, but were only filled with dry-mouthed wonder as to how to commence our work.