ing to retrieve, if possible, the loss I had sustained, I soon [169] increased my difficulties, so that in a few months after my arrival, all my schemes failing, I was left totally destitute.
In February, 1785, I quitted Montreal, and walked from La Prairie to St. John's,[1] where I accidentally found a friend who supplied me with money to go to New York. I proceeded to Stony Point, where I stayed two days with some loyalist officers, some of whom accompanied me to Crown Point, where we also stayed three days.[2] We then parted company, and I hired a slay, which carried me safely to New York, where I took a lodging, and lived as moderately as I could.
During my residence there, I met a Loretto Savage,
called Indian John, who had been in the American service
all the war, and who waited to receive a reward
for his fidelity, as the Congress were then sitting. He
told me he had been at war for them nine years, had
killed a great many of their enemies, and had only received
a gun, two blankets, three pieces of Indian gartering,
and one hundred dollars in paper money, which
he could not make use of; and as I understood his language
he desired me to render him service by interpreting for
————
- ↑ For a description of the road from St. Johns on the Richelieu River, at the outlet of Lake Champlain—where the French built a fort in 1748—to La Prairie on the St. Lawrence, see Kalm, Travels in North America (London, 2nd ed., 1772), ii, pp. 219-223.—Ed.
- ↑ Crown Point, called by the French Pointe au Chevalure (scalp point), was fortified by the latter nation in 1731, as their advanced post (Fort St. Frédéric) on the northern frontier. During the French and Indian War it was twice attacked by the English; but the French retained possession until Amherst's expedition (1759), when Fort St. Frédéric was abandoned and destroyed. Amherst began here extensive fortifications, the ruins of which still exist. Crown Point was captured by the Americans in 1775, and restored to the British in 1776. After 1780 it was dismantled and fell into decay, so that Long could have found but deserted quarters at this place.—Ed.
