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| Battle of the Thousand Islands | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theMontreal Campaign of theFrench and Indian War | |||||||
 Williamson's gunboats capture the FrenchcorvetteL'Outaouaise near Point au Baril, painted byThomas Davies | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Iroquois Confederacy | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
 Jeffery Amherst |  Pierre Pouchot | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 11,000 regulars andprovincial troops 700 Iroquois | 300 regulars, militia, sailors and voyageurs | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 26 dead 47 wounded (likely excluding militia) | 300 dead, wounded, or captured | ||||||
TheBattle of the Thousand Islands was an engagement fought on 16–24 August 1760, in the upperSt. Lawrence River, among theThousand Islands, along the present dayCanada–United States border, by British and French forces during the closing phases of theSeven Years' War, as it is called in Canada and Europe, or theFrench and Indian War as it is referred to in the United States.
The engagement took place atFort Lévis (about one mile (1.6 km) downstream from the modernOgdensburg–Prescott International Bridge), Pointe au Baril (present-dayMaitland, Ontario), and the surrounding waters and islands during theMontreal Campaign. The small French garrison at Fort Lévis held the much larger British army at bay for over a week, managing to sink two Britishwarships and to cripple a third. Their resistance delayed the British advance toMontreal from the west.
By August 1760, the French were buildingFort Lévis atÎle Royale (present-dayChimney Island New York) in the St. Lawrence River. CaptainPierre Pouchot was assigned its defense. Pouchot had been taken prisoner after thesiege of Fort Niagara, but he was later released in a prisoner exchange.Chevalier de Lévis' original design for the fort called for stone walls, 200guns and some 2,500 troops. What Pouchot had was a small fort with wooden stockades, five cannon and 200 soldiers. Also under Pouchot's command were thecorvettesl'Outaouaise andl'Iroquoise, crewed by 200 sailors andvoyageurs.l'Iroquoise, under command of CommodoreRené Hypolite Pépin dit La Force, was armed with ten 12-pound cannon andswivel guns .l'Outaouaise, commanded by CaptainPierre Boucher de LaBroquerie carried ten 12-pounders, one 18-pound gun and swivel guns.
After the fall of Quebec in the 1759Battle of the Plains of Abraham, BritishCommander-in-ChiefGeneralJeffery Amherst prepared to launch a three-pronged attack to take Montreal. Columns were to advance along the Saint Lawrence River fromQuebec to the northeast, up theRichelieu River fromLake Champlain to the south, and fromOswego onLake Ontario to the west. The latter force, which Amherst led personally, numbered some 10,000 men and 100 siege guns.
Soon after his arrival to Île Royal, Pouchot ordered abandonment of the nearby missionFort de La Présentation and the shipyard and stockades atPointe au Baril to consolidate his resources at the more defendable Fort Lévis. La Force had run his corvettel'Iroquoise aground at Pointe au Baril on 1 August. Althoughl'Iroquoise was raised, it was deemed too damaged to be put into action. It was beached again under the guns at Fort Lévis.
Amherst's force set out from Oswego on 10 August. CaptainJoshua Loring, who commanded the BritishsnowsOnondaga andMohawk, had been sent ahead of Amherst's force as an advance guard.Onondaga had beenlaunched atFort Niagara asApollo in 1759. Commanded by Loring, it carried four 9-pound guns, fourteen 6-pounders and a crew of 100 seamen and 25 soldiers.Mohawk, commanded by LieutenantDavid Phipps, carried sixteen 6-pounders and a crew of 90 seamen and 30 soldiers.
On 7 August, French lookouts sightedOnondaga andMohawk from their outpost atIle aux Chevreuils, upstream from Fort Lévis. The French withdrew in a rowgalley, pursued byOnondaga andMohawk. The two British vessels got lost in the maze of islands, and did not find their way back to the main channel for several days.
Amherst's force arrived atPointe au Baril on 16 August. Fearing the remaining French ship might attack his transports, Amherst ordered ColonelGeorge Williamson to capturel'Outaouaise the following day. At dawn of 17 August, Williamson set out in agig, accompanied by fiverow galleys (one armed with ahowitzer, the others each armed with a single12-pounder. The galleys took shelter fore and aft ofl'Outaouaise, where they could not be hit by the ship's broadsides. The British galleys firedgrapeshot andround shot at the French ship, cripplingl'Outaouaise, which drifted helplessly towards the Britishbattery set up at Pointe au Baril. After three hours of fighting,l'Outaouaise had managed to fire around 72 shots, damaging two of the British galleys. LaBroquerie was forced to surrenderl'Outaouaise to Williamson. LaBroquerie was wounded in the fighting. Fifteen members of his crew were killed or wounded.
The capturedl'Outaouaise was repaired and renamedWilliamson, to be put back into service by CaptainPatrick Sinclair against her former owners. On 19 August, Amherst commenced the attack on Fort Lévis. La Force and his crew had been ordered back from the beachedl'Iroquoise to the fort to assist with its defense.Williamson was hit 48 times by the five French guns when it joined in with the British batteries firing on Fort Lévis from surrounding islands.Mohawk andOnondaga finally arrived at the scene in the evening and Amherst called a ceasefire for the night. The attack resumed at dawn on 20 August withWilliamson,Mohawk andOnondaga all firing on the fort with a combined 50 guns. As the attack progressed, the French guns hit and sankWilliamson andOnondaga.Mohawk ran aground under the French cannon, where it sat helpless as it was pounded until out of action. The British batteries on the surrounding islands continued to fire, switching to "hot shot", used to start fires within the fort. The siege continued until 24 August when Pouchot ran out of ammunition for his guns and asked for terms.
The fighting cost the British 26 killed and 47 wounded (likely excludingmilitia) to the French losses of around 275 of the original 300 defenders killed or wounded. Pouchot was amongst the wounded. The British could hardly believe that such a small garrison had offered such spirited resistance.[1]
After the battle, Amherst's force remained at Fort Lévis for another four days before continuing toward Montreal. The British advance cost Amherst at least 84 more men drowned in the rapids of the St. Lawrence (although Pouchot puts this number at 336). He went on to meet the forces from Quebec and Lake Champlain and completely surrounded Montreal. The three-pronged British forces totaling 17,000 men began to converge on the town, burning villages along the way and prompting mass desertions from the Canadian militia.[2] On 8 September, Montreal was surrendered by New France's governor, theMarquis de Vaudreuil, to avoid further bloodshed.[3]
The British renamed Fort Lévis Fort William Augustus. They raised the three vessels sunk during the battle (Williamson,Onondaga andMohawk) and put them back into service to patrol the waters between the fort and Fort Niagara.
