I demand a decisive answer within an hour."
Monro replied simply that he and his soldiers would defend themselves
till the last.
The trenches were opened on the night of the 4th. The work was
extremely difficult, the ground being covered with hard stumps of trees
and fallen trunks. All night long 800 men toiled at the work, while the
guns of the fort kept up a constant fire of round shot and grape; but
by daybreak the first parallel was made. The battery on the left was
nearly finished, and one on the right begun. The men were now working
under shelter, and the guns of the fort could do them little harm.
While the French soldiers worked, the Indians crept up through the
fallen trees, close to the fort, and fired at any of the garrison who
might, for a moment, expose themselves. Sharpshooters in the fort
replied to their fire, and all day the fort was fringed with light
puffs of smoke, whilst the cannon thundered unceasingly. The next
morning, the French battery on the left opened with eight heavy cannon
and a mortar, and on the following morning the battery on the right
joined in with eleven other pieces.
The fort only mounted, in all, seventeen cannon, for the most part
small, and, as some of them were upon the other faces, the English
fire, although kept up with spirit, could reply but weakly to that of
the French.
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