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In conduct and courage, Arnold’s behavior was excellent throughout.  Without enlarging upon the energy which created the flotilla, and the breadth of view which suggested preparations that he could not enforce, admiration is due to his recognition of the fact—­implicit in deed, if unexpressed in word—­that the one use of the Navy was to contest the control of the water; to impose delay, even if it could not secure ultimate victory.  No words could say more clearly than do his actions that, under the existing conditions, the navy was useless, except as it contributed to that end; valueless, if buried in port.  Upon this rests the merit of his bold advance into the lower narrows; upon this his choice of the strong defensive position of Valcour; upon this his refusal to retreat, as urged by Waterbury, when the full force of the enemy was disclosed,—­a decision justified, or rather, illustrated, by the advantages which the accidents of the day threw into his hands.  His personal gallantry was conspicuous there as at all times of his life.  “His countrymen,” said a generous enemy of that day, “chiefly gloried in the dangerous attention which he paid to a nice point of honour, in keeping his flag flying, and not quitting his galley till she was in flames, lest the enemy should have boarded, and struck it.”  It is not the least of the injuries done to his nation in after years, that he should have silenced this boast and effaced this glorious record by so black an infamy.

With the destruction of the flotilla ends the naval story of the Lakes during the War of the American Revolution.  Satisfied that it was too late to proceed against Ticonderoga that year, Carleton withdrew to St. John’s and went into winter-quarters.  The following year the enterprise was resumed under General Burgoyne; but Sir William Howe, instead of cooeperating by an advance up the Hudson, which was the plan of 1776, carried his army to Chesapeake Bay, to act thence against Philadelphia.  Burgoyne took Ticonderoga and forced his way as far as Saratoga, sixty miles from Ticonderoga and thirty from Albany, where Howe should have met him.  There he was brought to a stand by the army which the Americans had collected, found himself unable to advance or to retreat, and was forced to lay down his arms on October 17th, 1777.  The garrison left by him at Ticonderoga and Crown Point retired to Canada, and the posts were re-occupied by the Americans.  No further contest took place on the Lake, though the British vessels remained in control of it, and showed themselves from time to time up to 1781.  With the outbreak of war between Great Britain and France, in 1778, the scene of maritime interest shifted to salt water, and there remained till the end.

[Footnote 1:  In customary representation of maps, North is upper, and movement northward is commonly spoken of as up.  It is necessary therefore to bear in mind that the flow of water from Lake George to the St. Lawrence, though northward, is down.]