Sir James Craig was not a little to blame for the terrible state of
fermentation into which the representatives of the sovereign people of
America had wrought themselves. Without the knowledge of the Imperial
government, Mr. Secretary Ryland had received the concurrence of Sir
James Craig to a scheme for the annexation of the New England States to
Canada. A young man named Henry, of Irish parentage, and a captain in
the militia of the American States had come to Montreal with the view
of remaining in Canada. He studied law and made considerable
proficiency. Indeed, he was a young man possessed of some talent and of
great assurance. And as there was another suspicion haunting the minds
of Sir James Craig and of Mr. Secretary Ryland, Mr. John Henry, late
captain in the American service, and now Barrister-at-law, was
introduced to Governor Craig, as a gentleman likely to inform the
government of Canada, whether or not, the suspicions of the Governor
and of the Governor's Secretary, were correct, these suspicions being
that the North Eastern States of the American Republic desired to form
a political connection with Great Britain. Mr. Henry appeared to be the
very man for such a mission. He was immediately employed as a spy, and
went to Boston, where he did endeavour to ascertain the public mind, in
those places in which it is most frequently spoken. He lingered about
hotels and news rooms. He visited the parks and the saloons. He went to
church, or wherever else information was to be obtained, and he sent
his experiences regularly to Mr. Ryland, who furnished him with
instructions. But Captain Henry required to be paid for all this
trouble. He applied to Governor Craig to find that excellent gentleman
had no idea of their value. He then memorialized Lord Liverpool, asking
for his services only the appointment of Judge Advocate of Lower
Canada, to which the salary of £500 a year was attached. The noble
Lord, at the head of the government, knew nothing about Captain Henry,
and recommended him, if he had any claim upon Canada, to apply to Sir
George Prevost, the Governor General. Captain Henry would do no such
thing. He went to the United States, and, for the sum of fifty thousand
dollars, gave up to the American government a very interesting
correspondence between the Secretary of the Governor General of Canada,
Mr. Ryland, and himself. Congress was so transported with rage, at the
attempted annexation, that a bill was brought into the House of
Representatives, and seriously entertained, the object of which was to
declare every person a pirate, and punishable with death, who, under a
pretence of a commission from any foreign power, should impress upon
the high seas any native of the United States; and gave every such
impressed seaman a right to attach, in the hands of any British
subject, or of any debtor to any British subject, a sum equal to thirty
dollars a month, during the whole period of his detention.[16] The
federalist Americans were somewhat favourably disposed towards England.
The minority in the House of Representatives, among which were found
the principal part of the delegation from New England, in an address to
their constituents, solemnly protested, on the ground that the wrongs
of which the United States complained, although in some respects,
grievous, were not of a nature, in the then state of the world, to
justify war, nor were they such as war would be likely to remedy. On
the subject of impressment they urged that the question between the two
countries had once been honorably and satisfactorily settled, in the
treaty negotiated with the British Court by Messrs. Monroe and
Pinckney, and that although that treaty had not been ratified by Mr.
Jefferson, arrangements might probably again be made. In relation to
the second cause of war--the blockade of her enemies' ports, without an
adequate force, the minority replied that it was not designed to injure
the commerce of the United States, but was retaliatory upon France,
which had taken the lead in aggressions upon neutral rights. In
addition it was said, that as the repeal of the French decrees had been
officially announced, it was to be expected that a revocation of the
Orders in Council would follow. They could not refrain from asking what
the United States were to gain from war? Would the gratification of
some privateers-men compensate the nation for that sweep of American
legitimate commerce, by the extended marine of Great Britain, which the
desperate act of declaring war invited? Would Canada compensate the
middle States for New York, or the Western States for New Orleans? They
would not be deceived! A war of invasion might invite a retort of
invasion. When Americans visited the peaceable, and, to Americans, the
innocent colonies of Great Britain, with the horrors of war, could
Americans be assured that their own coast would not be visited with
like horrors. At such a crisis of the world, and under impressions such
as these, the minority could not consider the war into which the United
States had, in secret, been precipitated, as necessary, or required by
any moral duty, or any political expediency. The country was divided in
opinion, respecting either the propriety or the expediency of the war.
The friends of the administration were universally in favor of it.

      [16] Allison, page 656.

That there was no just cause for a declaration of war on the part of
the United States, it may be sufficient to state that the news of the
repeal of the obnoxious Order in Council, reached the United States
before England was aware of the declaration of war. But the American
government wanted a war as an excuse for a filibustering expedition to
Canada, which was to be peaceably separated from Great Britain, and
quietly annexed to the United States. Then existing differences would
have been speedily patched up to the satisfaction of all parties, the
Lower Canadians being, in the language of Sir James Craig, treasonable,
seditious, and attached to the country with which the United States was
in alliance, France. The United States were not prepared for war. While
Great Britain had a hundred sail of the line in commission, and a
thousand ships of war bore the royal flag, the Americans had only four
frigates and eight sloops in commission, and their whole naval force
afloat in ordinary, and building for the Ocean and the Canadian Lakes,
was eight frigates and twelve sloops. Their military force only
amounted to twenty-five thousand men, to be enlisted for the most part,
but the President was authorised to call out one hundred thousand
militia, for the purpose of defending the sea coast and the Canadian
frontiers. The greatest want of all was proper officers. The ablest of
the revolutionary heroes had paid the debt of nature, and there was no
military officer to whom fame could point as the man fitted for
command. With means so lamentably inconsiderable had America declared
war against a country whose arms were sweeping from the Spanish
Peninsula the disciplined and veteran troops of France. It was
marvellous audacity. And it was a marvellous mistake. Canada, it is
true, had only 5,454 men of all arms, who could be accounted soldiers,
445 artillery, 3,783 infantry of the line, and 1,226 fencibles. She had
only one or two armed brigs and a few gun-boats on the lakes, but the
Upper Canadians were not prepared to exchange their dependency on Great
Britain for the paltry consideration of being erected into a territory
of the United States, and the Superintendent of the Church of Rome, in
Lower Canada, hardly thought it possible that a new conquest of Canada
would make her peculiar institutions more secure than they were. The
militia of both sections of Canada were loyal. They felt that they
could, as their enemies had done before, at least defend their own
firesides. There was no sympathy with the American character, nor any
regard for American institutions then. Those feelings were to be
brought about by that commercial selfishness which time was to develop.

The declaration of war by the United States was only known in Quebec on
the 24th of June. A notification was immediately given by the police
authorities to all American citizens then in Canada, requiring them to
leave the province on or before the third of July. But Sir George
Prevost afterwards extended the time to fourteen days longer, to suffer
American merchants to conclude their business arrangements.
Proclamations were issued, imposing an embargo on the shipping in the
port of Quebec, and calling the legislature together, for the despatch
of business. Parliament met on the 16th of July. The Governor-in-Chief
announced the declaration of war, expressed his reliance upon the
spirit, the determination, the loyalty and the zeal of the country.
With the aid of the militia, His Majesty's regular troops, few in
number, as they were, would yet gallantly repel any hostile attempt
that might be made upon the colony. It was with concern that he saw the
expense to which the organization and drilling of the militia would put
the province. But battles must be fought, campaigning had to be
endured, and true and lasting liberty was cheap at any cost of life or
treasure. The reply was all that could be desired. While the House
deplored the hostile declaration that had been made against Great
Britain, and seemed to shrink from the miseries which war entails, they
assured the Governor that threats would not intimidate, nor persuasions
allure them from their duty to their God, to their country, and to
their king. They were convinced that the Canadian militia would fight
with spirit and determination, against the enemy, and would, with the
aid of the tried soldiers of the king, sternly defend the province
against any hostile attack. As far as spirit went there was no
deficiency, but Canada was worse off for money than the United States
was for soldiery. There were forty thousand militia about to rise in
arms, but where was the money to come from necessary to keep them
moving? Congress intended to raise an immediate loan of ten millions of
dollars. It was essential Canada should immediately replenish her
exchequer, as those not being the days of steamships, funds from
England could not be soon obtained. Sir George Prevost resolved to
issue army bills, payable either in cash, or in government bills of
exchange, on London. The House of Assembly assented to the circulation
of any bills, and granted fifteen thousand pounds annually for five
years, to pay the interest that would accrue upon them. Bills to the
value of two hundred and fifty thousand were authorised to be put in
circulation; they were to be received in the payment of duties; they
were to be a legal tender in the market; and they were to be redeemed
at the army bill office, in any way, whether in cash or bills, the
Governor-in-Chief might signify. Nothing could have been more
satisfactory to Sir George Prevost. He prorogued the Parliament on the
1st of August, with every expression of satisfaction. And well he might
be satisfied. The men who were, according to the representations of his
predecessor, not at all to be depended upon, in a case of emergency,
had most readily, liberally, and loyally, met the demands of the public
service. The men who feared martial law, and could not tolerate the
withholding of the Habeas Corpus, came forward nobly to defend from
outward attack the dominions of their king. The whole province was
bursting with warlike zeal. A military epidemic seized old and young,
carrying off the latter in extraordinary numbers. Montreal, Quebec, and
even Kingston and Toronto teemed with men in uniform and in arms. The
regular troops were moved to Montreal, and Quebec was garrisoned by the
militia. At Montreal, even the militia turned out for garrison duty.
And on the 6th of August, the whole militia were commanded to hold
themselves in readiness for embodiment. A little of the zeal now began
to ooze out. There never yet was a rule without an exception. In the
Parish of Ste. Claire, some young men, who had been drafted into the
embodied militia, refused to join their battalion. Of these, four were
apprehended, but one was rescued, and it was determined by the
able-bodied men of Pointe Claire to liberate such others of their
friends as had already joined the depot of the embodied militia at
Laprairie. Accordingly, on the following day, some three or four
hundred persons assembled at Lachine. They had not assembled to pass a
series of resolutions censuring the government for illegally and
wantonly carrying off some of the best men of the Parish of Pointe
Claire, nor did they express any opinion favorable to Mr. Madison and
the Americans, but they had assembled to obtain, by force, the liberty
of their friends about to be subjected to military discipline. It
seemed to have been a misunderstanding, however. The infuriated
parishioners of Pointe Claire, who would not be comforted, on being
appealed to, to go to their homes, frequently raised the cry of "Vive
le Roi." It might be supposed that the Ste. Claire people meant to wish
a long and happy reign to His Imperial Majesty Napoleon, as Mr. Ryland
shrewdly suspected. But that supposition was not entertainable for any
considerable length of time, inasmuch as the people without any
prompting intimated that they had been informed that the militia law
had not been put into force, but that if the Governor should call for
their services they were ready to obey him. The magistrates assured the
people that the militia law was really to be enforced, and advised them
to disperse. They refused to budge. Two pieces of artillery and a
company of the 49th regiment, which had been sent for, to Montreal, now
appeared at Lachine. Still the mob would not disperse. Accordingly, the
Riot Act was read, and the artillery fired a ball high over the heads
of the stubborn crowd, which, of course, whizzing harmlessly along,
produced no effect upon the crowd, except that the eighty, who were
armed with fusils and fowling pieces, somewhat smartly returned the
compliment, proving to the satisfaction of the soldiers the possession
of highly military qualities, in a quarter where it was least expected.
In reply, the troops fired grape and small arms, but without any
intention of doing mischief. The rioters again fired at the troops, but
not the slightest harm resulted to the troops. It was a kind of sham
battle. The military authorities began, however, to tire of it, and the
mob was fired into, when one man having been killed, and another having
been dangerously wounded, the mutineers dispersed, leaving some of the
most daring among them, to keep up a straggling fire from the bushes!
The military made thirteen prisoners and, as night was setting in, left
for Montreal. Next day, four hundred and fifty of the Montreal militia
marched to Pointe Claire, and from thence to St. Laurent, which is
situated in the rear of the Island of Montreal. There, they captured
twenty-four of the culprits, and brought them to head quarters. Thus,
there were thirty-seven rebels, prisoners in Montreal, when the United
States had declared war against Britain, and the first blood shed, in
consequence of the declaration of war in Canada, by the troops, was,
unfortunately, that of Canadians. But the Pointe Claire
_habitants_ bitterly repented the resistance which they had made
to the militia law, and many of them came to Montreal, craving the
forgiveness of the Governor, which they readily obtained. The
ringleaders alone were punished.

Hostilities were commenced in Upper Canada. No sooner had General
Brocke learned that war was proclaimed, than he conceived a project of
attack. He did not mean to penetrate into the enemy's country, but for
the better protection of his own, to secure the enemy's outposts. On
the 26th of June, he sent orders to Captain Roberts, who was at St.
Joseph's, a small post, or block house, situated on an island in Lake
Huron, maintained by thirty soldiers of the line and two artillerymen,
in charge of a serjeant of that corps, under the command of the gallant
captain, to attack Michillimackinac, an American fort defended by
seventy-five men, also under the command of a captain. He was further
instructed to retreat upon St. Mary's, one of the trading posts
belonging to the North West Fur Company, in the event of St. Joseph's
being attacked by the Americans. General Brocke's instructions reached
Captain Roberts on the eighth of July, and he lost no time in carrying
the first part of them into execution. Communicating the design, the
execution of which he had been entrusted with, to Mr. Pothier, in
charge of the Company's Post, at St. Joseph's, that gentleman
patriotically tendered his services. Mr. Pothier, attended by about a
hundred and sixty voyageurs, the greater part of whom were armed with
muskets and fowling pieces, joined Captain Roberts with his detachment
of three artillerymen and thirty soldiers of the line, and in a
flotilla of boats and canoes, accompanied by the North West Company's
brig _Caledonia_, laden with stores and provisions, a descent was
made upon Michillimackinac. They arrived at the enemy's fort, without
having met with the slightest opposition, and summoned it to surrender.
The officer in command of the American fort at once complied. He had
indeed received no certain information that war had been declared. Very
shortly afterwards two vessels, laden with furs, came into the harbour,
ignorant of the capture of the fort, and were taken possession of,
though subsequently restored to their proprietors, by Major-General
DeRottenburgh, the President of the Board of Claims. Unimportant as
this achievement was, it yet had the effect of establishing confidence
in Upper Canada. It had an excellent effect upon the Indian tribes,
with whose aid the struggle with the Americans, was afterwards
efficiently maintained.

Upon the declaration of war, the government of the United States
despatched as skilful an officer, as they had, to arm the American
vessels on Lake Erie, and on Lake Ontario, with the view of gaining,
if possible, the ascendancy on those great inland waters, which
separate a great portion of Canada from the United States. The
American army was distributed in three divisions:--one under General
Harrison called "The North Western Army," a second under General
Stephen Van Rensellaer, at Lewiston, called "The Army of the Centre,"
and a third under the Commander-in-Chief, General Dearborn, in the
neighbourhood of Plattsburgh and Greenbush. As yet the armies had not
been put in motion, but on the 12th of July, General Hull, the
Governor of Michigan, who had been sent, at the head of two thousand
five hundred men, to Detroit, with the view of putting an end to the
hostilities of the Indians in that section of the country, crossed
to Sandwich, established his head-quarters there, and issued a
proclamation to the inhabitants of Canada. He expressed the most
entire confidence of success. The standard of union, he alleged, waved
over the territory of Canada. He tendered the invaluable blessings of
liberty, civil, political, and religious, to an oppressed people,
separated from, and having no share in the Councils of Britain, or
interests in her conduct. And he threatened a war of extermination if
the Indians were employed in resisting the invasion.

General Brocke met the Parliament of Upper Canada, at York, on the 28th
of the same month, and issued a proclamation to the people, in which he
ridiculed General Hull's fears of the Indians. He then despatched
Colonel Proctor to assume the command at Amherstburgh, from Fort St.
George.

So confident was the American General of success that, as yet, he had
not a single cannon or mortar mounted, and he did not consider it
expedient to attempt to carry Amherstburgh, which was only situated
eighteen miles below, by assault. But, as his situation, at Sandwich,
became more and more precarious, he, at length, did resolve upon
attacking Amherstburgh, if he could get there. He sent detachment after
detachment, to cross the Canard, the river on which Amherstburgh
stands. The Americans attempted thrice to cross the bridge, situated
three miles above Amherstburgh, in vain. Some of the 41st regiment and
a few Indians drove them back as often as they tried it. Another rush
was made a little higher up. But the attempt to ford the stream was as
unsuccessful as the attempts to cross the bridge. Near the ford, some
of those Indians, so much dreaded by General Hull, lay concealed in the
grass. Not a blade stirred until the whole of the Americans were well
in the stream, and some had gained the bank, on the Canadian side, when
eighteen or twenty of the red children of the forest, sprang to their
feet, and gave a yell, so hideous, that the Americans, stricken with
panic, fled with almost ludicrous precipitancy. So terror-stricken,
indeed, were the valiant host, that they left arms, accoutrements, and
haversacks, behind them. No further attempt was made by General Hull,
on Amherstburgh. It would have been captured with great difficulty, if
it could have been captured at all. At the mouth of the river Canard, a
small tributary of the Detroit, the _Queen Charlotte_, a sloop of
war, armed with eighteen twenty-four pounders, lay at anchor, watching
every manoeuvre.

On the 3rd of July, Lieutenant Rolette, commanding the armed brig
_Hunter_, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, succeeded in capturing
the _Cayuga_ packet, bound from the Miami river to Detroit, with
troops, and laden with the baggage and hospital stores of the American
army. He made a dash at the _Cayuga_ in his barge, and, with only
six men, secured her.

Colonel Proctor now assumed the offensive. He sent Captain Tallon, on
the 5th of August, with an inconsiderable detachment of the 41st
regiment, and a few of the many Indians, who were flocking to his
standard, to Brownstown, a village opposite Amherstburgh. Captain
Tallon energetically carried out his instructions, by surprising and
routing more than two hundred of the Americans, who were under the
command of Major Vanhorne. The captured detachment were on their way
from Detroit to the river Raisin, in the expectation of meeting there a
detachment of volunteers, from Ohio, under Captain Burr, with a convoy
of provisions for the army. General Hull's despatches fell into the
hands of the captors. The deplorable state of the American army was
disclosed, and, without loss of time, Colonel Proctor sent over a
reinforcement, consisting of one hundred men, of the 41st regiment,
with some militia and four hundred Indians, under the command of Major
Muir, their landing being protected by the brig _Hunter_. Nor were
the American General's misfortunes yet to be ameliorated. While these
things were taking place, a despatch reached him from the officer
commanding the Niagara frontier, intimating that his expected
co-operation was impossible. On every side, General Hull was being
hemmed in. His supplies had been cut off. Defeat had befallen him so
far and death, sickness, fatigue and discomfiture had its depressing
effect upon his soldiery. There was no insurrection in Canada. The
people of the backwoods had not the slightest desire to be territorially
annexed to that country over which the standard of union had waved for
thirty years. On the contrary, they were bent upon doing it as much
mischief as possible. They had no idea of transferring their allegiance
to a power who had visited them with the miseries of war, for no fault
of theirs. Hull was dismayed. When it was announced that General Brocke
was advancing against him, he sounded a retreat. Unwilling that his
fears should be communicated to the troops under him, General Hull
retreated ostensibly with the view of concentrating the army. After he
had re-opened his communications with the rivers Raisin and Miami,
through which the whole of his supplies came, he was to resume
offensive operations. That time never came. On the 8th of August,
Sandwich was evacuated. Two hundred and fifty men only were left
behind, in charge of a small fortress, a little below Detroit. When
again in Detroit, General Hull sent six hundred men under Colonel
Miller, to dislodge the British from Brownston. Major Muir, who
commanded at Brownston, instead of waiting for the attack, quixotically
went out to meet his adversaries. The two opposing detachments met at
Maguago, a kind of half way place, where a fight began. It was of short
duration, but, considering the numbers engaged, was sanguinary.
Seventy-five of the Americans fell, and the British were compelled,
though with inconsiderable loss, to retreat. On the water as on the
land, the chief mischief fell upon the Americans. Lieutenant Rolette,
with the boats of the _Queen Charlotte_ and _Hunter_, intercepted,
attacked, and captured eleven American batteaux and boats, which were
_en route_ for Detroit, under the escort of two hundred and fifty
American soldiers, marching along the shore, the boats and batteaux
having on board fifty-six wounded Americans and two English prisoners.

General Brocke, who had prorogued his Parliament, now appeared at the
seat of war. He had collected together a force of seven hundred of
British regulars and militia and six hundred auxiliary Indians. And he
very coolly determined upon obtaining the surrender of His Excellency,
General Hull, and his whole force. Knowing from his absurd proclamation,
how much in dread he stood of the Indians, General Brocke intimated
that if an attack were made, the Indians would be beyond his control;
that if Detroit were instantly surrendered, he would enter into
conditions such as would satisfy the most scrupulous sense of honor;
and that he had sent Lieutenant-Colonel McDonnell and Major Glegg with
full authority to conclude any arrangement that might prevent the
unnecessary effusion of blood. General Hull replied very courteously in
the negative. Captain Dixon, of the Royal Engineers, had thrown up a
battery in Sandwich, on the very ground so recently occupied by the
Americans, to act upon Detroit. In this battery there were two five and
a half inch mortars, and one eighteen and two twelve pounder guns, and
it was manned by sailors under the command of Captain Hull. For upwards
of an hour the cannonade was terrific, the fire of the enemy being very
feebly maintained, from two twenty-four pounders. On the morning of the
eighteenth, the cannonade recommenced, and General Brocke crossed the
river with his little army, unopposed, at the Spring Wells, three miles
below Detroit, the landing being effected under cover of the guns of
the _Queen Charlotte_ and _Hunter_. General Brocke formed his troops
upon the beach, into four deep, and flanked by the Indians, advanced
for about a mile, when he formed this miniature army into line, with
its right resting on the river Detroit, and the left supported by the
Indians. He then made preparations for assault, and was about to
attack, when to the surprise as much, it is said, of the American as of
the British regiments, a flag of truce was displayed upon the walls of
the fort, and a messenger was seen approaching. It was an intimation
that General Hull would capitulate. Lieutenant-Colonel McDonnell and
Major Glegg were accordingly sent over to the American General's tent
where, in a few minutes, the terms of capitulation were signed, sealed,
and delivered in duplicate, one copy for the information of His
Britannic Majesty, and the other for that of Mr. President Madison, the
chief of the authors of the war. To Mr. Madison, the information that
General Hull had capitulated to the Governor of Upper Canada, with two
thousand five hundred men, and thirty-three pieces of cannon, and that,
in consequence, the whole territory of Michigan had been ceded to Great
Britain, could only have been as disagreeable as it was animating to
the people of Canada. So entirely indeed were the Americans unprepared
for a blow of such extraordinary severity, that no one could be brought
to believe in it. It seemed an impossible circumstance. It was felt to
be a delusion. It seemed as if some one had practised a terrible hoax
upon the nation. Until officially made known to the sovereign people,
the disaster was looked upon as a lying rumour of the enemy. Another
Henry had been at work, tampering with the New England States, or the
federalist minority had set it afloat. True it could not be. It was
indeed something to excite surprise. The trophy of a British force,
consisting of no more than seven hundred men, including militia, and
six hundred Indians was the cession of a territory and the surrender of
a General-in-Chief, a strong fort, the armed brig _John Adams_, and the
two thousand five hundred men, who were designed not to defend their
country only, but to wrest Upper Canada from the Crown of Great
Britain. To General Hull's fears of the savage ferocity of the Indians,
this bloodless victory must, to some extent, however trifling, be
attributed. General Hull was evidently superstitiously afraid of an
Indian. While asking the inhabitants of Upper Canada to come to him for
protection, he could not help entreating, as it were, protection for
himself against the Indians. If you will not accept my offer, the
General seemed to say, either remain at home or cross bayonets with
American soldiers, but turn into the field one of the scalping savages
of your forests, and we shall kill, burn and destroy, everything that
comes before us. With his regular troops, the unfortunate man was sent
a prisoner to Montreal. He was led into that city, at the head of his
officers and men, and was at once an object of pity and derision. But
the Commander-in-Chief received his prisoner with the courtesy of a
gentleman, and with every honor due to his rank. Nay, he even suffered
him to return to the United States on parole, without solicitation.

In his official despatch, to the American government, Hull took pains
to free his conduct from censure. His reasons for surrender, were the
want of provisions to maintain the siege, the expected reinforcements
of the enemy, and "the savage ferocity of the Indians," should he
ultimately be compelled to capitulate. But the federal government so
far from being satisfied with these excuses, ordered a Court Martial to
assemble, before which General Hull was tried, on the charges of
treason, cowardice, and unofficerlike conduct. On the last charge only
was he found guilty and sentenced to death. The Court, nevertheless,
strongly recommended him to mercy. He was an old man, and one who, in
other times, had done the State some service. He had served honorably
during the revolutionary war. The sentence of death was accordingly
remitted by the President, but his name was struck off the army list,
and this republican hero, who had forgotten the art of war, went in his
old age, broken-hearted and disgraced, to a living grave, with a worm
in his vitals, gnawing and torturing him, more terribly than thousands
of Indians, practising the most unheard of cruelties could have done,
until death, so long denied, came to him, naturally, as a relief.

The circumstance is not a little curious that only three days after
General Hull had surrendered to Governor Brocke, Captain Dacres,
commanding H.M.S. _Guerrière_, had surrendered to Captain Isaac Hull,
after a most severe action with the American frigate _Constitution_.
The _Constitution_ was most heavily armed for a vessel of that period.
On her main deck she carried no less than 30 twenty-four pounders,
while on her upper deck she had 24 thirty-two pounders, and two
eighteens. In addition to this, for a frigate, unusually heavy
armament, there was a piece mounted, under her capstan, resembling
seven musket barrels, fixed together with iron bands, the odd concern
being discharged by a lock--each barrel threw twenty-five balls, within
a few seconds of each other, making 145 from the piece within two
minutes. And she was well manned. Her crew consisted of 476 men. The
_Guerrière_ mounted only 49 carriage guns, and was manned by only 244
men, and 19 boys. On the 19th of August, the look-out of the
_Guerrière_ noticed a sail on the weather beam. The ship was in
latitude 40°., 20 N., and in longitude 55°. W., and was steering under
a moderate breeze on the starboard tack. The strange sail seemed to be
bearing down upon the _Guerrière_, and it was not long before the
discovery was made that the stranger was a man-of-war, of great size
and largely masted. Her sailing qualities, under the circumstances,
were considerably superior to those of the _Guerrière_, and it became
consequently necessary to prepare for an action, which it was
impossible to avoid. At three o'clock, in the afternoon, Captain
Dacres, the commander of the British frigate, beat to quarters. An hour
later and the enemy was close at hand. She seemed to stand across the
_Guerrière's_ bows and Captain Dacres wore ship to avoid a raking fire.
No sooner had this manoeuvre been executed than the _Guerrière_ ran up
her colours and fired several shots at her opponent, but they fell
short. The stranger soon followed the example set to him, and, hoisting
American colours, fired in return. Captain Dacres now fully aware of
the size, armament and sailing powers of his opponent, wore repeatedly,
broadsides being as repeatedly exchanged. While both ships were keeping
up a heavy fire, and steering free, the _Constitution_, at five
o'clock, closed on the _Guerrière's_ starboard beam, when the battle
raged furiously. Twenty minutes had hardly elapsed when the mizen mast
of the _Guerrière_ was shot away, bringing the ship up into the wind,
and the carnage on board became terrific. The _Constitution_, during
the confusion, caused by the loss of the _Guerrière's_ mast, was laid
across the British frigate's bow, and while one or two of the bow guns
of the _Guerrière_ could only be brought to bear upon the _Constitution_,
that vessel scoured the decks of the British ship, with a stream of
metal. "At five minutes before six o'clock, says Captain Hull, when
within half pistol shot, we commenced a heavy fire from all our guns,
double shotted with round and grape." On board the _Guerrière_, Mr.
Grant, who commanded the forecastle, was carried below, the master was
shot through the knee; and I, says Captain Dacres, was shot in the
back. At twenty minutes past six the fore and mainmasts of the
_Guerrière_ went over the side, leaving her an unmanageable wreck. The
_Constitution_ ceased firing and shot a-head, her cabin having taken
fire from the _Guerrière's_ guns. The _Guerrière_ would have renewed
the action, but the wreck of the masts had no sooner been cleared than
the spritsail yard went, and the _Constitution_ having no new braces,
wore round within pistol shot again to rake her opponent. The crippled
ship lay in the trough of the sea, rolling her main deck guns under
water. Thirty shots had taken effect in her hull, about five sheets of
copper down; the mizen mast, after it fell, had knocked a large hole
under her starboard quarter, and she was so completely shattered as to
be in a sinking state. The decks were swimming with blood. Fifteen men
had been killed and sixty-three had been severely wounded, when Captain
Dacres called his officers together and consulted them. Farther waste
of life was useless, and the British colours were dropped in submission
to those of America. But the result of the contest, though it could not
fail to cause great exultation in the United States, reflected no
dishonor upon the flag of Britain. A more unequal contest had never
before been maintained with such spirit, zeal, skill, or bravery. The
battle had lasted for nearly three hours and a half, and the result was
the sure effect of size, as all things being otherwise equal, the
heavier must overcome the lighter body. When the _Guerrière_
surrendered, it was only to permit her gallant commander, her other
officers, and the men, the wounded and the untouched, to be transferred
for safety from a watery grave to the _Constitution_. Captain Hull, the
conqueror, told his government that the _Guerrière_ had been totally
dismasted and otherwise cut to pieces, so as to make her not worth
towing into port. With four feet of water in her hold, she was
abandoned and blown up. The _Constitution_ had only the Lieutenant of
Marines and six seamen killed, and two officers, four seamen, and one
marine wounded.

On each side there was now something to be proud of and something to
regret. If the British exulted over the fall of Detroit and the
surrender of General Hull, and the United States viewed these
occurrences with indescribable pain and a sense of humiliation, the
Americans could now boast of the success of their arms at sea, while
Britain regretted a disaster upon that element, on which she had long
held and yet holds the undisputed mastery. There was now no room for
the American government, on the ground of having been too much
humiliated, to refuse peace if it were offered to her. Yet peace was
refused. Soon after these occurrences the news of the repeal of the
Orders in Council reached this continent, and the ground of quarrel
being removed, peace was expected, and an armistice was agreed to
between the British Governor of Canada, Sir George Prevost and General
Dearborn, the American commander-in-chief, on the northern frontier.
But the American government, bent upon the conquest of this province,
disavowed the armistice and determined upon the vigorous prosecution of
the contest. It was then that the Northern States of the American
Union, who were the most likely to suffer by the war became clamorous
for peace. The whole brunt of the battle, by land, was necessarily to
be borne by the State of New York, and the interruption of the
transatlantic traffic was to fall with overwhelmingly disastrous
pressure upon Massachusetts and Connecticut. Addresses to the President
were sent in, one after another, from the Northeastern States,
expressing dissatisfaction with the war and the utmost abhorrence of
the alliance between imperial France and republican America. They would
have none of it, and if French troops were introduced into their
States, as auxiliaries, New England would look upon them and would
treat them as enemies. Nay, the Northern States went still further. Two
of the States, Connecticut and Massachusetts, openly refused to send
their contingents or to impose the taxes which had been voted by
Congress, and "symptoms of a decided intention to break off from the
confederacy were already evinced in the four Northern States,
comprising New York, and the most opulent and powerful portions of the
Union."[17]

      [17] Alison's History of Europe, page 662, vol. 10.

General Brocke, ignorant of the armistice, and indeed it did not affect
him, for General Hull had acted under the immediate orders of the
American Secretary at War, and was consequently irresponsible to
General Dearborn, with the aid of the Lilliputian navy of the Lakes,
was maintaining the ascendancy of Great Britain in Upper Canada and
Michigan. He was about indeed to make an attempt upon Niagara, to be
followed by another upon Sackett's Harbour, with that daring,
promptitude and judgment, which was characteristic of the man, when he
received instructions from the Governor General to rest a little.
Following the advice of the Duke of Wellington, Sir George Prevost had
wisely determined not to make a war of aggression with the only handful
of troops that could be spared to him from the scene of prouder
triumphs and of harder and more important struggles. But the American
government, indifferent to the menaces of the Northern Provinces of the
Union, and mistaking for weakness the conciliatory advances of Sir
George Prevost, soon disturbed the rest of the gallant Brocke. Early on
the morning of the 13th of October, a detachment of between a thousand
and thirteen hundred men, from the American army of the centre, under
the immediate command of Colonel Solomon Van Rensellaer,[18] crossed
the river Niagara, and attacked the British position of Queenstown. It
was when Van Rensellaer having himself crossed, and the British had
been driven from their position, that General Brocke, and about six
hundred of the 49th regiment, in the grey of the morning, arrived at
the scene of conflict. The Americans being about the same time
reinforced by the addition of regulars and militia. General Brocke put
himself at the head of the 49th's Grenadiers, and while gallantly
cheering them on, he fell mortally wounded, and soon after died. His
trusty aid-de-camp, the brave Colonel McDonell, fell beside him, almost
at the same moment, never again to rise in life. The 49th fought
stoutly for a time, but, discouraged by the loss of the General, they
fell back and the position was lost. But the fortune of the day was not
yet decided, although Van Rensellaer, with the aid of Mr. Totter, his
Lieutenant of Engineers, had somewhat strengthened the recently
captured position on the heights. Reinforcements, consisting partly of
regular troops, partly of militia, and partly of Chippewa Indians, in
all about eight or nine hundred men, came up about three in the
afternoon, to strengthen and encourage the discomfitted 49th, under
General Roger Sheaffe, who now assumed the command. A combined attack
was made on the Americans by the English troops and artillery, in front
and flank, while Norton, with a considerable body of Indians, menaced
their other extremity. It was entirely successful. The Americans were
totally defeated, and one General Officer, (Wadsworth, commanding in
the room of General Van Rensellaer, who had re-crossed the river to
accelerate the embarkation of the militia, which, though urged,
entreated, and commanded to embark, remained idle spectators, while
their countrymen were, as the American accounts say, struggling for
victory,) two Lieutenant-Colonels, five Majors, and a corresponding
number of Captains and subalterns, with nine hundred men, were made
prisoners; one gun and two colours were taken; and there were four
hundred killed and wounded, while the loss on the side of the British
did not exceed seventy men. Thus was the battle won. It had cost
England an excellent soldier, a man who thoroughly understood his duty,
and felt his position in whatever capacity he was placed. He died at
the age of 42, and the remains of this gallant defender of Upper Canada
were buried at Fort George, together with those of his aid-de-camp,
Colonel McDonell. One grave contained both. General Brocke was buried
amidst the tears of those whom he had often led to victory, and amidst
the sympathetic sorrowing of even those who had caused his death.
Minute guns were fired during the funeral, alike from the American as
from the British batteries. Thus it was with the Americans on land. It
was, as has been seen, very different on the sea. And the first
rencontre took place on the latter element. When war was declared it
was with the intention of intercepting the homeward bound West India
fleet of British merchantmen. Three frigates, one sloop, and one brig
of war, under the command of Captain Rogers, of the American frigate
_President_, were despatched on that errand. It was about three on
the morning of the 23rd of June, that Captain Rogers was informed, by
an American brig, bound from Madeira to New York, that four days before
a fleet of British merchantmen, were seen under convoy of a frigate and
a brig, steering to the eastward. Captain Rogers accordingly shaped his
course in pursuit of them. At six o'clock in the morning, a sail was
descried, which was soon discovered to be a frigate. The signal was
made for a chase, and the squadron made all sail on the starboard tack.
This being perceived by Captain Byrn, who commanded the British frigate
_Belvidera_, protecting the convoy, he tacked and made all sail,
steering northeast by east. It was now eight o'clock in the morning,
and the _President_ seemed to be gaining on the _Belvidera_,
leaving her consorts, however, far behind her. About half past three in
the afternoon, the _President_ fired three guns, the shot from one
of which was terribly destructive. Two men were killed, and Lieutenant
Bruce and four men were more or less severely wounded. Broadside after
broadside was fired by both vessels soon afterwards, and the
_President_ at last bore off. Each party lost about twenty-two
men, but the British frigate had the advantage. Her guns were pointed
with great skill, and produced a surprising effect, as the American
squadron failed in taking the single English frigate, and the whole
merchantmen escaped untouched. Indeed after a cruise of twenty days and
before the declaration of hostilities was known at sea, the American
squadron returned to port, having only captured seven merchantmen.

      [18] Alison says under the command of General Wadsworth, but
      Christie speaks of Brigadier-General Van Rensellaer, while the
      American accounts speak of Colonel Solomon Van Rensellaer. In
      this case Mr. Christie and the Americans are to be preferred to
      Alison.

The action between the _Constitution_ and the _Guerrière_ occurred
after this event, the result of which has been already stated, somewhat
out of place, it is true, but, with the design of exhibiting how a
peace might have been effected, had it been desired by the Americans,
without loss of honor on either side. The simultaneousness of the
advantages gained by the British on the land, and of the advantages
gained by the Americans on the sea, is not a little remarkable, nor is
it less remarkable that after the tide of battle had slightly turned
with the British on land, towards the close of the war, the naval
actions at sea were nearly all to the disadvantage of the Americans. It
would seem that providence had designed to humble the pride of the
unnatural combatants.

About the exact time of the surrender of General Wadsworth, at
Queenston, an engagement occurred between the English sloop of war
_Frolic_, and the American brig of war _Wasp_, which proved disastrous
to the former. As far as the number of guns went, both vessels were
equal. Each had eighteen guns, nine to a broadside, but while the sloop
had only 92 men and measured only 384 tons, the brig had 135 men and
measured 434 tons. The _Frolic_, on the night of the 17th of October,
had been overtaken by a most violent gale of wind, in which she carried
away her mainyard, lost her topsails, and sprung her maintopmast. It
was, while repairing damages, on the morning of the 18th, that Captain
Whinyates, of the _Frolic_, was made aware of the presence of a
suspicious looking vessel, in chase of the convoy, which the _Frolic_
had in charge. The merchant ships continued their voyage with all sails
set, and the _Frolic_, dropping astern, hoisted Spanish colours to
decoy the stranger under her guns and give time for the convoy to
escape. The vessels soon approached sufficiently to exchange
broadsides, and the firing of the _Frolic_ was admirable. But the
vessel could not be worked easily, and the gaff braces being shot away,
while no sail could be or was placed upon the mainmast, her opponent
easily got the advantage of position. To be brief, the storm of the
night before had given the _Wasp_ an advantage which, neither nautical
skill, nor undaunted resolution could counteract, and the _Frolic_, an
unmanageable log upon the ocean, was compelled to strike. Undoubtedly
this was another triumph to the United States, although, materially
considered, the gain was not much. In only a few hours after this
action, both the _Wasp_ and the _Frolic_ were surrendered to H.M.S.
_Poictiers_, of seventy-four guns.

Seven days afterwards, another naval engagement occurred, more
tellingly disastrous to Great Britain. The _United States_, a frigate
of fifteen hundred tons burthen, carrying 30 long 24-pounders, on her
main deck, and 22 42-pounders, with two long 24-pounders, on quarter
deck and forecastle, howitzer guns in her tops, and a travelling
carronade on her deck, with a complement of 478 picked men,[19] was
perceived by H.M. frigate _Macedonian_, of 1081 tons, carrying 49 guns,
and manned by 254 men and 35 boys. The _Macedonian_ approached the
enemy and the enemy backed her sails, awaiting the attack, after the
firing had continued for about an hour, at long range. When in close
battle, Captain Carden perceived that he had no chance of success, but
he was determined to fight his ship while she floated and was
manageable, hoping for, rather than expecting, some lucky hit, which
would so cripple the enemy as to permit the _Macedonian_, if no more
could be done, to bear off with honor. But the fortune of war was
adverse. Every shot told with deadly and destructive effect upon the
_Macedonian_, and even yet, with nearly a hundred shots in her hull,
her lower guns under water, in a tempestuous sea, and a third of her
crew either killed or wounded, Captain Carden fought his ship. To
"conquer or die," was his motto, and the motto of a brave crew, some of
whom even stood on deck, after having paid a visit to the cockpit, and
submitted to the amputation of an arm, grinning defiance, and anxious
to be permitted the chance of boarding with their fellows, when Captain
Carden called up his boarders as a _dernier resort_. But boarding was
rendered impossible, as the fore brace was shot away, and the yard
swinging round, the vessel was thrown upon the wind. The _United
States_ made sail ahead and the crew of the _Macedonian_ fancying that
she was taking her leave cheered lustily. They were not long deceived.
Having refilled her cartridges, the _United States_, at a convenient
distance, stood across the bows of her disabled antagonist, and soon
compelled her to strike. While the _Macedonian_ had thirty-six killed
and sixty-eight wounded, the _United States_ had only five killed and
seven _hors de combat_.

It was such advantages as these that induced the Americans to continue
the war. The Americans were inflated with pride. In their own
estimation they had become a first rate maritime power, and even in the
eyes of Europe, it seemed that they were destined to become so. The
disparity in force was justly less considered than the result. However
bravely the British commanders had fought their ships, the disasters
were no less distressing, politically considered, than if they had been
the result of positive weakness or of lamentable cowardice. These
advantages even compensated in glory to the Northeastern States for the
losses which their commerce had sustained, and would, had they
continued very much longer, have stimulated them to forget their
selfishness, their bankruptcies, and their privations, though perhaps
they tended on the other hand, to cause less vigorous efforts to be
made for the acquisition of Canada, than otherwise would have been the
case, by rivetting the public attention of America more on the
successful operations by sea than on their own disastrous operations by
land. There was yet another disaster to overtake Great Britain. And it
was little wonder. The Lords of the Admiralty, wedded to old notions,
unlike the Heads of the Naval Department of the United States, were
slow to alter the build or armament of the national ships. They seemed
to think that success must ultimately be dependent upon pluck, and that
there could be again few instances in which a sloop could be so
disabled by a storm as to be unable to cope with a brig, better manned,
better armed, and in good sailing trim. They continued to send
slow-sailing brigs and ill-armed sloops-of-war, for the protection of
large fleets of merchantmen, with valuable cargoes, while the frigates
of the enemy, in search of them, whether in the calm or in the storm,
were faster than British seventy-fours, and were equal to British ships
of the line in armament. It was after the loss of the _Macedonian_ that
the British Admiralty commissioned and sent to sea the frigate _Java_,
of the same tonnage, with the same deficiency of men, and, worse than
all, half of whom were landsmen, and of exactly the same armament as
the _Macedonian_, only that her weight of metal was less, to cope with
such frigates as the _United States_, the _President_, and the
_Constitution_. On the 12th of November, the _Java_ sailed from
Spithead, the remonstrances of Captain Lambert against the inadequacy
and inexperience of his crew being of no avail with the authorities. He
was told, when he insisted that he was no match for an American, even
of equal size, that "a voyage to the East Indies and back would make a
good crew." The difficulties in the way of getting to the East Indies,
to say nothing of coming back again, never entered into the heads of
men, who had long been laid up in ordinary, and were dry-rotting to
decay. These were the men who sent the water casks to contain the fresh
water of His Majesty's vessels afloat on our fresh water lakes. Then,
as now, were the wrong men in the wrong places. Men, who should have
been in Greenwich Hospital, talking of times gone by, or living in
dignified retirement, were entrusted with the management of affairs in
a new age, the country rather losing than gaining by their individual
experiences. And the British public stung to the quick, were aware of
it. The correctness of Captain Lambert's judgment was too soon brought
to the test. The _Java_ fell in with the _Constitution_ on the 28th of
December, when the latter stood off as the former approached, to gain a
first advantage by firing at long range. But as the _Java_ was fast
gaining upon her, the _Constitution_ made a virtue of necessity, and
shortened sail, placing herself under the lee bow of the _Java_, so
that in close action, the crew of the _Constitution_ might fight like
men behind a rampart, while the crew of the _Java_ stood at their guns
_en barbette_. The action immediately commenced, and the effect of the
_Java's_ first broadside, on the enemy's hull, was such that the
American wore to get away. Captain Lambert also wore his ship, and a
running fight was kept up with great spirit for forty minutes. The
_Java_ had, as yet, suffered little, but the vessels coming within
pistol shot, a determined action ensued. Captain Lambert had resolved
upon boarding his enemy, if it were possible in any measure to effect
it. With that view he was closing upon his antagonist, when the
foremast of the _Java_ fell suddenly and with a crash so tremendous as
to break in the forecastle and cover the deck with the wreck. Only a
moment later and the main topmast also fell upon the deck, while
Captain Lambert lay weltering in his blood, mortally wounded.
Lieutenant Chads, on whom the command now devolved, found the _Java_
perfectly unmanageable. The wreck of the masts hung over the side, next
to the enemy, and every discharge of the _Java's_ own guns set her on
fire. Yet, Lieutenant Chads continued the action for three hours and a
half, until the _Java_ was felt to be going down. It was then that the
_Constitution_ assumed a raking position, and it was then only that
Lieutenant Chads struck. The _Java_ was no prize to the victors of
great value, for her crew were no sooner taken out than the American
commander blew her up. In this desperate engagement the _Java_ had
twenty-two killed and one hundred and two wounded; the _Constitution_
had ten killed and forty wounded. Captain Lambert's worst fears had
been realised, and the death of that gallant and skilful sailor aroused
a tongue which, in Great Britain, has a potency and influence, such as
official insolence cannot withstand, nor official incapacity escape
from. The spirit of the "Times" was up. The voice of the many loudly
condemned the incompetency of the few. The conduct of the war had now
become a matter of moment, and reforms, in the marine department at
least, were imperative.

      [19] Captain Carden's despatch to Mr. Croker.

By the fall of Gen'l. Brocke, the civil governorship of the Upper
province devolved upon Major Gen'l. Roger Sheaffe, the senior military
officer there, and to him, Gen'l. Smyth, the new American commander at
Niagara, applied for an armistice, which was granted, and which lasted
from the battle of Queenston until the 20th of November. Nothing could
have been more silly than this consent to an armistice on the part of a
general so very fortunate as General Sheaffe had been. He needed no
rest. He could gain nothing by inactivity. Delay necessary to the enemy
was of course injurious to him. Without any molestation whatever the
Americans were enabled to forward their naval stores from Black Rock to
Presque Isle, by water, which, had hostilities been active, would have
been impossible. This truce, not to bury the dead, or preparatory to
submission, was obtained with the view of gaining time, so that a fleet
might be equipped to co-operate with the army, by wresting from the
British their previous superiority on the lakes. General Smyth had,
with the true trickery of the diplomatist, rather than with the blunt
honesty of the soldier, exerted himself during the armistice, in the
preparation of boats for another attempt to invade Upper Canada.
Alexander Smyth, Brigadier-General, in command of the American army of
the centre, though a rogue, in a diplomatic point of view, was not
necessarily a fool. He had shrewd notions in a small way. Like a true
downeast Yankee, he knew the effect of soft sawder upon human nature.
Like the unfortunate Hull, before taking possession of a territory so
extensive as Upper Canada, he thought it necessary to assure the
stranger that he was, on submitting to be conquered, to become "a
fellow citizen." He proclaimed this interesting fact to his own
companions in arms. If the stranger citizens behaved peaceably, they
were to be secure in their persons, as a matter of course, but only in
their properties so far as Alexander's imperious necessities would
admit, and how far that would have been, time was to unfold. He
strictly forbade private plundering, but whatever was "booty,"
according to the usages of war--"booty and beauty," doubtless
combined,--Alexander's soldiery were to have. Appealing to the
trader-instincts of his hordes, he offered two hundred dollars a head
for artillery horses, of the enemy, and forty dollars for the arms and
spoils of each savage warrior, who should be killed, and every man, who
should shrink, in the moment of trial, was to be consigned to "eternal
infamy." The watchword of the "patriots," was to be "the cannon lost at
Detroit or death."

During the truce, in Upper Canada, there was some skirmishing in Lower
Canada. At St. Régis, four hundred Americans surprised the Indian
village. Twenty-three men were made prisoners, and Lieutenant Rolette,
with Serjeant McGillivray, and six men were slain. But to
counterbalance this affair, a month later, some detachments of the 49th
regiment, a few artillery, and seventy militiamen from Cornwall and
Glengary, surrounded a block house at the Salmon River, and made
prisoners of a Captain, two subalterns and forty men; four batteaux and
fifty-seven stand of arms, falling also into the hands of the captors.

In no way discouraged, however much they may have been irritated by
these repeated failures, which had not even the excuse of inferiority
in numbers, or in any want of the materials of war, if the want of
vessels on the lake be not considered, the American government
energetically exerted itself to augment their naval forces on the lakes
and to reinforce General Dearborn. Indeed, that officer was now at the
head of ten thousand men, at Plattsburgh, and the American fleet on
Lake Ontario was already so much superior to that of the British, as to
make it necessary for the latter to remain inactive in harbour. The
British ship _Royal George_, was actually chased into Kingston channel,
and was there cannonaded for some time. It was only when the American
fleet came within range of the Kingston forts that they hauled off to
Four Mile Point, and anchored, the commander taking time to reflect
upon the expediency of bombarding Kingston. Next morning, having come
to an opposite conclusion, he stood out with his fleet into the open
lake and fell in with the _Governor Simcoe_. A chase was commenced, and
the _Governor Simcoe_ narrowly escaped by running over a reef of rocks,
and making for Kingston, which, like the _Royal George_, she reached
more hotly pursued than she had bargained for. It was late in the
season, and the weather becoming more and more boisterous, the
Americans bore away for Sackett's Harbour, in making for which they
captured two British schooners, taking from one of them, Captain
Brocke, the paymaster of the 49th regiment of the line, who had with
him the plate which had belonged to his gallant deceased brother, the
late Governor of Upper Canada. But the American Commodore Chancey,
generously paroled him, and suffered him to retain the plate.

Unable to remain longer inactive, General Dearborn, in command of the
American army of the north, approached Lower Canada. On the 17th of
November, Major DeSalaberry, commanding the Canadian Cordon and
advanced posts, on the line, received intelligence of Lieutenant
Phillips, that the enemy, ten thousand strong, were rapidly advancing
upon Odelltown. There was no time to be lost and he set about
strengthening his position as speedily as he could. Two companies of
Canadian Voltigeurs, three hundred Indians, and a few militia
volunteers were obtained from the neighboring parishes, and there was
every disposition manifested to give the intruders a warm reception.
The enemy, however, halted at the town of Champlain, and nothing of
moment occurred until the 20th of November, when the Captain of the
day, or rather of the night, as it was only three in the morning,
noticed the enemy fording the river Lacolle. Retracing his steps, he
had only time to warn the piquet of their danger, when a volley was
fired by the Americans, who had surrounded the log guard-house, at so
inconsiderable a distance that the burning wads set fire to the birch
covering of the roof, until the guard-house was consumed. But long
before that happened, the militia and Indians had discharged their
guns, and dashed through the enemy's ranks. It was dark, and the
position which the Americans had taken, with the view of surrounding
the guard-house, contributed somewhat to their own destruction. In a
circle, face to face, they mistook each other in the darkness, and
fought gallantly and with undoubted obstinacy. Neither side of the
circle seemed willing to yield. For half an hour a brisk fire was kept
up, men fell, and groaned, and died; and the consequences might have
been yet more dreadful had not the moon, hidden until now by clouds,
revealed herself to the astonished combatants. The victors and the
vanquished returned together to Champlain, leaving behind four killed
and five wounded. From the wounded prisoners, whom, with the dead, the
Indians picked off the battle field, it was learned that the
unsuccessful invaders consisted of fourteen hundred men and a troop of
dragoons, commanded by Colonels Pyke and Clarke.

Unfortunate to the Americans as this night attack had been, it was
sufficient to lead the Governor General of Canada to the conclusion
that it would not be the last. Nay, he was persuaded that a most
vigorous attempt at invasion would be made, and having no Parliament to
consult, nor any public opinion to fear, he turned out the whole
militia of the province for active service, and ordered them to be in
readiness to march to the frontier. Lieutenant-Colonel Deschambault was
directed to cross the St. Lawrence at Lachine, and from Caughnawaga, to
march to the Pointe Claire, Rivière-du-Chène, Vaudreuil, and Longue
Pointe. Battalions upon L'Acadie, and volunteers from the foot
battalions, with the flank companies of the second and third battalions
of the Montreal militia, and a troop of militia dragoons, crossed to
Longueil and to Laprairie. Indeed the whole district of Montreal, armed
to the teeth, and filled with enthusiasm, simultaneously moved in the
direction from whence danger was expected. General Dearborn quietly
retreated upon Plattsburgh and Burlington, and, like a sensible man, as
he undoubtedly was, abandoned for the winter, all idea of taking
possession of Lower Canada.

On the 28th of November, the armistice being at end, General Smyth
invaded Upper Canada, at the foot of Lake Erie. With a division of
fourteen boats, each containing thirty men, a landing was effected
between Fort Erie and Chippewa, not however unopposed. Lieutenant King,
of the Royal Artillery, and Lieutenants Lamont and Bartley, each in
command of thirty men of the gallant 49th, gave the enemy a reception
more warm than welcome. Overwhelmed, however, by numbers, the artillery
and the detachment of the 49th, under Lamont gave way, when Lieutenant
King had succeeded in spiking his guns. Lamont and King were both
wounded, and with thirty men, were overtaken by the enemy and made
prisoners. Bartley fought steadily and fiercely. His gallant band was
reduced to seventeen, before he even thought of a retreat, which his
gallantry and tact enabled him to effect. The American boats had, while
Bartley was keeping up the fight, returned to the American shore with
the prisoners, and as many Americans as could crowd into them, leaving
Captain King, General Smyth's aid-de-camp, to find his way back, as
best he might. He moved down the river shore with a few officers and
forty men, followed, from Fort Erie, by Major Ormsby, who made them all
prisoners with exceedingly little trouble. Unconscious of any disaster,
another division of Americans, in eighteen boats, made for the Canada
shore. Colonel Bishop had now arrived from Chippewa, and had formed a
junction with Major Ormsby, the Commandant of Fort Erie, and with
Colonel Clarke and Major Hall, of the militia. There were collected
together, under this excellent officer, about eleven hundred men,
taking into account detachments of the 41st, 49th, and Royal
Newfoundland regiments, and in addition, some Indians. The near
approach of the Americans was calmly waited for. A cheer at last burst
from the British ranks and a steady and deadly fire of artillery and
musketry was opened upon the enemy. The six-pounder, in charge of
Captain Kirby, of the Royal Artillery, destroyed two of the boats. The
enemy were thrown into confusion, and retired.

General Smyth again tried the effect of diplomacy upon the stubborn
British. He displayed his whole force of full six thousand men, upon
his own side of the river. Colonel Bishop ordered the guns which had
been spiked to be rendered serviceable, and the spikes having been
withdrawn, the guns were remounted and about to open fire, with the
view of scattering the valiant enemy, when a flag of truce brought a
note from General Smyth. It was simply a summons to surrender Fort
Erie, with a view of saving the further effusion of blood. He was
requested to "come and take it," but did not make another attempt until
the 1st of December, when the American troops embarked merely again to
disembark and go into winter quarters. Murmur and discontent filled the
American camp, disease and death were now so common, and General
Smyth's self-confidence was so inconsiderable that the literary hero,
who had spoken of the "eternal infamy" that awaits him who "basely
shrinks in the moment of trial," literally fled from his own camp,
afraid of his own soldiery, who were exasperated at his incapacity.
Thus ended the first year of the invasion. The Americans had learned,
the not unimportant lesson, that, as a general rule, it is so much more
easy successfully to resist aggression, than, as the aggressor, to be
successful. The invasion of any country, if only occupied by savages,
requires more means than is generally supposed.

Sir George Prevost, somewhat relieved from the anxiety attendant upon
anticipated and actual invasions, now summoned his Parliament of Lower
Canada, to meet for the despatch of business. He opened the session on
the 29th of December, and in his speech from the throne, alluded to the
honorable termination of the campaign, without much effusion of blood,
any loss of territory, or recourse having been had to martial law. He
proudly alluded to the achievements in Upper Canada, and feelingly
alluded to the loss sustained by the country, in the death of General
Brocke. He spoke of the recent advantages gained over the enemy in both
provinces, and recommended fervent acknowledgements to the ruler of the
universe, without whose aid the battle is not to the strong nor the
race to the swift. And it was not alone for such advantages, great as
they were, that the country had to be thankful; the Marquis of
Wellington had gained a series of splendid victories in Spain and
Portugal. In Spain and Portugal British valour had appeared in its
native vigour, encouraging the expectation that these countries would
soon be relieved from the miseries which had desolated them. His Royal
Highness, the Prince Regent, had directed him to thank the House for
their loyalty and attachment. His Royal Highness felt not the slightest
apprehension of insidious attacks upon the loyalty of a people who had
acted so liberally and loyally as the Canadians had done. Sir George
spoke of the beneficial effects arising from the Army Bill Act, and
recommended it to their further consideration. The militia had been
called out and had given him the cheering satisfaction of having been a
witness of a public spiritedness, and of a love of country, religion,
and the laws, which elsewhere might have been equalled, but could not
be anywhere excelled. He recommended a revision of the militia law and
urged upon the legislature the expediency of concluding the public
business with dispatch.

Sir George had aroused the better feelings of the country. His words
fell gratefully upon the ear. The Canadian people and their
representatives felt that they were treated with respect and were proud
in the knowledge of deserving it. All that the Assembly wanted was the
confidence and affection of their sovereign. No longer treated with
suspicion and looked upon with aversion they were ready to sacrifice
everything for their country, and the reply of the House of Assembly
was an assent to his every wish.

As soon as the House had proceeded to business, Mr. James Stuart, one
of the members for Montreal, with the view of embarrassing the
government, and with no purpose of creating uneasiness in England,
moved for an enquiry into the causes and injurious consequences that
might have resulted from the delay incurred in the publication of the
laws of the Provincial Parliament, passed in the previous session. His
assigned object in making the motion was to palliate the conduct of the
Pointe Claire rioters. The motion carried and the Clerks and other
officers of the Upper House were summoned to attend at the Bar of the
Assembly. The Upper House, seemingly, considered that their officers
had equal privileges with themselves, and at first refused to allow
these gentlemen to attend, but, seeing the Assembly resolute, and being
anxious not to throw any obstacle in the way of the speedy despatch of
the public business, they permitted their attendance under protest. The
result of the enquiry amounted to nothing, and the House proceeded to
other business. The subject of appointing an agent to England was again
considered, but postponed until a more suiting time, when the propriety
of an income tax was discussed. It was indeed resolved in the Assembly
to impose a tax upon persons enjoying salaries from the government, of
fifteen per cent upon such as had £1,500 a year, twelve per cent upon
such as had £1,000 and upwards, ten per cent upon £500 and upwards, and
five per cent upon every £250 and upwards. The bill was, of course,
rejected by the Council. The Assembly, however, firmly convinced of the
loyalty of the people, were neither to be cajoled nor brow-beaten out
of their rights, and they proceeded to other business of a singularly
unpleasant character to the higher powers. Mr. Stuart, the leader of
the opposition, was a man of extraordinary capacity and of great
firmness of purpose. Those who had made Sir James Craig do him an
injustice still held their appointments, and he was determined to bring
about a change without the slightest regard whatever to the
consequences of change. He moved for an enquiry into the power and
authority exercised by His Majesty's Courts of Law, with a view to put
a stop to such trifling with justice as had been exhibited in the
arrest and imprisonment of Mr. Bedard and others. It was asserted by
Mr. Stuart that under the name of Rules of Practice, the Chief Justice,
in league with the government, had subverted the laws of the province,
and had assumed legislative authority, to impose illegal burthens and
restraints upon His Majesty's subjects, in the exercise of their legal
rights, which were altogether inconsistent with the duties of a Court
and subversive of the rights and liberties of the subject. The House
granted the enquiry sought for, and proceeded to other business. But it
is here worthy of note that Mr. Bedard, who had been so unjustly
treated by Sir James Craig, in virtue of these Rules of Practice, had
now triumphed over his enemies. He, who only two years back, had been
presented, at the instance of the government, by the Grand Juries of
Quebec and Montreal, was now seated upon the Bench as Provincial Judge
for the District of Three Rivers, and thus, says his secret enemy, Mr.
Ryland, is he associated with the Chief Justice of the province, who,
in his capacity of Executive Councillor, had concurred in his
commitment to the gaol of Quebec, on treasonable practices. It was to
secure the independence of the judges by freeing them from executive
trammels, that Mr. James Stuart himself, afterwards Chief Justice of
the province, and a Baronet of the United Kingdom, moved for an enquiry
concerning their Rules of Practice, rules obviously incompatible with
the liberty of speech and with the freedom of the press. The enquiry
had an excellent indirect effect. It seemed to some extent, to have
secured the liberty of the press. From the time, says Mr. Ryland, that
the Assembly began its attacks on the Courts of Justice, the
licentiousness of a press, (the _Gazette_,) recently established at
Montreal, has appeared to have no bounds. Every odium that can be
imagined, is attempted in that publication, to be thrown on the memory
of the late Governor-in-Chief, on the principal officers of government,
and on the Legislative Council. The people's minds are poisoned and the
disorganizing party encouraged to proceed. Thus is it led to hope that
any future Governor may be deterred from exercising that vigor, which
the preservation of His Majesty's government may require. A higher
tribute to a free press no man ever paid than that. The hope has been
realised, the trials have all been passed through, and persecutions for
opinion's sake must now be cloaked, at least, by something more than
expediency.

The Assembly next proceeded to the consideration of the expediency of
legally enlarging the limits and operation of martial law, as
recommended in the speech from the throne, and reported that such
enlargement was inexpedient. The House then renewed the Army Bill Act,
authorised the sum of five hundred pounds to be put in circulation, and
commissioners were appointed to ascertain the current rate of exchange
on London, which holders were entitled to recover from government.
Fifteen thousand pounds were granted for the equipment of the militia,
and £1,000 additional for military hospital. Towards the support of the
war £25,000 were granted. £400 were granted for the improvement of the
communication between Upper and Lower Canada. A duty of two and a half
per cent, for the further support of the war was placed upon all
imported merchandize, with the exception of provisions, and two and a
half per cent additional on imports by merchants or others not having
been six months resident. A motion was made by one of the most
independent members of the Assembly, for a committee of the whole, to
enquire whether or not it was necessary to adopt an address to the King
concerning the impropriety of the judges being members of the
Legislative Council. But the motion was not pressed. This gentleman,
though very desirous of as much liberty as it was possible to obtain
for himself, was not particularly disposed to give an undue share to
others. He took umbrage at an article communicated to the _Mercury_,
ably written, and perhaps, at the time, strikingly true, relative to
the conduct which Mr. Stuart had been and was pursuing, since he had
been stript of his official situation by the late Governor. It was
hinted that the discontented legislator was actuated in his opposition
to the government by no unfriendly feeling to the United States. It was
asked if he were not determined to be somebody. He was a man not unlike
him who fired the temple of Ephesus. He was sowing seeds of
embarrassment and delay, and picking out flaws, with the microscope of
a lawyer, in the proceedings of the government. And he was prostituting
his talents and perverting his energies. The House resolved that the
letter of "Juniolus Canadensis," was a libel, and perhaps it was, but
if so, Mr. Stuart had the Courts of Law open to him, and therefore the
interference of the House was as silly as it was tyrannical. Mr. Cary,
the publisher of the _Mercury_, evaded the Sergeant-at-Arms, and
laughed at the silliness of the collective wisdom afterwards. The House
was prorogued on the 15th of February. The war had not so far produced
any injurious effect on the commerce of the country The revenue was
£61,193 currency, and the expenditure, which included the extraordinary
amount of £55,000 granted towards the support of the militia, was only
£98,777. The arrivals at Quebec numbered 399 vessels of 86,437 tons,
and in 1812, twenty vessels were built at the port of Quebec.

The first operations of the next campaign, in 1813, were favorable to
the British. On the 22nd of January, a severe action was fought at the
River Raisin, about twenty-six miles from Detroit, between a detachment
from the north-eastern army of the United States, exceeding seven
hundred and fifty men, under General Winchester, and a combined force
of eleven hundred British and Indians, under Colonel Proctor. General
Harrison, in command of the north western army of the United States,
was stationed at Franklintown. Anxious, at any cost, to afford the
discontented and sickly troops under him, active employment, he
detached General Winchester with his seven or eight hundred, or, as it
is even said, a thousand men, to take possession of Frenchtown. This,
General Winchester had little difficulty in doing, as he was only
opposed by a few militiamen and some Indians, under Major Reynolds. The
intelligence of the capture of Frenchtown had, however, no sooner
reached Colonel Proctor than he collected his men together and marched
with great celerity from Brownston to Stoney Creek. Next morning, at
the break of day, he resolutely attacked the enemy's camp and a bloody
engagement ensued. General Winchester fell into the hands of the chief
of the Wyandot Indians, soon after the action began, and was sent a
prisoner to Colonel Proctor. The Americans soon retreated, taking
refuge behind houses and fences, and, terribly afraid of the Indians,
determinedly resisted. The Americans blazed away; every fence and
window of the village vomited a flame of fire; but the British, with
their auxiliary Indians, were still driving in the enemy, and about to
set the houses on fire, when the captured General Winchester,
stipulated for a surrender. On condition of being protected from the
Indians, he assured Colonel Proctor that the Americans would yield, and
this assurance being given, General Winchester caused a flag of truce
to be sent to his men, calling upon them to lay down their arms, which
they were only too glad to do. The Americans lost between three and
four hundred in killed alone; while one brigadier-general, three field
officers, nine captains, twenty subalterns, and upwards of five hundred
rank and file, were taken prisoners.[20] Comparatively considered, the
British loss was trifling. Twenty-four men were killed, and one hundred
and fifty-eight were wounded. Colonel Proctor was raised to the rank of
Brigadier-General, in reward for his successful gallantry.

      [20] Alison mixes up Colonel McDonell's capture of Ogdensburgh,
      which is below Kingston, and opposite Prescott, the scene of the
      Wind Mill fight in '37.

As if to counterbalance the effect of this success, another naval
engagement occurred at sea, on the 14th of February, between the
British sloop of war _Peacock_ and the American brig _Hornet_. The
fight was long continued, bloody and destructive. The _Peacock_, after
an hour and a half of hard fighting was in a sinking state. The effect
of the enemy's fire was tremendous, but the men of the _Peacock_
behaved nobly. Mr. Humble, the boatswain, having had his hand shot
away, went to the cockpit, underwent amputation at the wrist, and again
voluntarily came upon deck to pipe the boarders. The _Peacock_ was now
rapidly settling down, and a signal of distress was consequently
hoisted. The signal was at once humanely answered. The firing ceased
immediately, the American's boats were launched, and every effort
praiseworthily made to save the sinking crew. All were not, however,
saved. Three of the _Hornet's_ men and thirteen of the crew of the
_Peacock_ went down in the latter vessel together. The _Hornet_ carried
twenty guns, while the _Peacock_ had only eighteen, and the tonnage of
the former exceeded, by seventy-four tons, that of the latter.

The Americans now gathering up their strength, irritated by their
repeated failures on the land, and disheartened, but yet not
discouraged by their original weakness on the lakes, were about, in
some degree, to be compensated more suitably for their inland losses
than by the capture or rather by the negative kind of advantage of
destroying at considerable cost and risk, frigates and sloops of war at
sea, inferior in every respect, the bravery of the sailors and the
skill of the officers excepted, to the huge and properly much esteemed
American double-banked frigates and long-gunned brigs. The command of
Lake Ontario had devolved on the Americans. New ships of considerable
size, and well armed, under the superintendence of experienced naval
officers, were built and launched day after day. Troops were being
collected at every point for an attack, by sea and land, upon either
York or Kingston. It was now exceedingly necessary that some activity
of a similar kind should be displayed by the British. The forests
abounded in the very best timber; there were able shipbuilders at
Quebec; the Canadian naval commanders had distinguished themselves
frequently; there was a secure dockyard at Kingston; and, indeed, there
existed no reason whatever, for the absence of that industry on the
Canadian side of the rivers and lakes, dividing the two countries, but
one, and a more fatal one could not have been listened to. It was
simply that the British had been hitherto able to repel the invader
wherever he had effected a landing, and would be, under any
circumstances, quite able, as they were willing, to repel him again.
And there was an ignorance about Canada, on the part of both the heads
of the naval and of the military departments in England, as
disgraceful, as it was inexcusable. It was believed that there were
neither artisans to be found in the country nor wood. It seemed to be a
prevalent opinion that the country was peopled only by French farmers,
a few French gentlemen, and some hundreds of discharged soldiers, with
a few lawyers and landed proprietors, styled U.E. Loyalists, besides
the few naval officers resident at Kingston, and the troops in the
different garrisons. In Upper Canada, during the winter, nothing, or
almost nothing, was done in the way of building ships for the lakes.
Sir George Prevost, it is true, made a hurried visit to Upper Canada,
after having prorogued the Parliament. He was a man admirably adapted
for the civil ruler of a country having such an elastic and very
acceptable constitution as that which Canada has now had for some years
past. He was one of those undecided kind of non-progressive beings, who
are always inclined to let well alone. He was well meaning, and he was
able too, in some sense. He was cautious to such a degree that caution
was a fault. He was not, by any means, deficient in personal courage,
but his mind always hovered on worst consequences. If he had hope in
him at all, it was the hope that providence, without the aid of
Governor Prevost, would order all things for the best. He had a strict
sense of duty and a nice sense of honor, but he always considered that
it was his duty not to risk much the loss of anything, which he had
been charged to keep, and his moral was so much superior to his
physical courage, that he never considered it dishonorable to retreat
without a struggle, if the resistance promised to be very great. An
instance of this occurred while Sir George was on his way to Upper
Canada. On the 17th of February, Lieutenant-Colonel Pearson, commanding
at Prescott, proposed to him an attack upon Ogdensburgh, which was then
slightly fortified, and was a rallying point for the enemy. Indeed, an
attack had some days previously been made upon Brockville, by General
Brown, at the head of some militia from Ogdensburgh, and Colonel
Pearson thought that the sooner an enemy was dislodged from a position
exactly opposite his own and only separated by a frozen river, three
quarters of a mile in width, the more secure he would have felt himself
to be, and the less danger would there have been of the communication
between the Upper and Lower provinces of Canada, being interrupted.
General Prevost would not consent to an attack, but he allowed a
demonstration to be made by Colonel McDonnell, the second in command at
Prescott, so that the enemy might exhibit his strength, and his
attention be so much engaged that no attempt would be made to waylay
the Governor General, on the information of two deserters from
Prescott, who would, doubtless, have informed the commandant, at
Ogdensburgh, of Sir George's arrival and of his chief errand. Colonel
McDonell moved rapidly across the river, and on landing, was met by
Captain Forsyth and the American forces under him. A movement designed
for a feint, was now converted into a real attack. Colonel McDonell, as
he perceived the enemy, still more rapidly pushed forward, and, in a
few minutes, was hotly engaged. The Americans were driven from the
village, leaving behind them twenty killed and a considerable number
wounded. On the side of the British, the loss of Colonel McDonell,
seven other officers and seven rank and file had to be deplored, while
forty-one men were wounded. The attack was most successful however.
Eleven cannons, several hundred stands of arms, and a considerable
quantity of stores fell into the hands of the victors, while two small
schooners and two gun-boats were destroyed in winter quarters.

Recruiting and drilling were being briskly carried on about Quebec and
Montreal. Some troops began to arrive, about the beginning of March,
from the Lower Provinces. The 104th regiment had arrived overland from
Fredericton, in New Brunswick, by the valley of the St. Johns River,
through an impenetrable forest, for hundreds of miles, to Lake
Temiscouata, and from thence to River-du-Loup, proceeding upwards along
the south shore of the St. Lawrence.

A month later and the Americans were ready to resume the offensive in
Upper Canada. The American fleet, consisting of 14 vessels, equipped at
Sackett's Harbour, situated at the foot of the lake, and not very far
from Kingston, in a direct line across, sailed from the harbour under
Commodore Chancey, with seventeen hundred men, commanded by Generals
Dearborn and Pike, to attack York, (now Toronto.) In two days the fleet
was close in shore, a little to the westward of Gibraltar Strait. A
landing was soon effected at the French fort of Toronto, about three
miles below York, under cover of the guns of the fleet, but the enemy's
advance was afterwards stoutly opposed. Six hundred militia men
altogether, including the grenadiers of the 8th regiment of the line,
could not long withstand seventeen hundred trained troops. They
withdrew and the schooners of the fleet approaching close to the fort,
commenced a heavy cannonade, while General Pike pushed forward to the
main works, which he intended to carry by storm, through a little wood.
As General Sheaffe, in command of the British, retired, and as General
Pike, in command of the Americans, advanced, a powder magazine exploded
which blew two hundred of the Americans into the air, and killed Pike.
Of the British, fully one hundred men were killed, and the walls of the
fort were thrown down. The Commodore was now in the harbour. And
General Sheaffe seeing that not the remotest chance of saving the
capital of Upper Canada, now existed, most wisely determined to retreat
upon Kingston. He accordingly directed Colonel Chewett, of the militia,
to make arrangement for a capitulation, and set off with his four
hundred regulars for Kingston. By the capitulation, private property
was to be respected, and public property only surrendered. The gain was
not great, if the moral effect of victory be not considered. The
victors carried off three hundred prisoners, and the British, before
retreating, had considered it expedient to burn a large armed ship upon
the stocks, and extensive naval stores.

The Clerk of the House of Assembly of Upper Canada, a volunteer, fell
during the struggle. In all, the British loss was one hundred and
thirty killed and wounded.

It is said that General Sheaffe suffered severely in the public
estimation, because he retreated. The public had forgotten that he had
killed and destroyed more Americans than had fallen on the side of the
British. Nor did it occur to them that had their general not retreated,
and capitulated, an armed fleet was in the harbour, which it was
impossible to drive out, even had the fort been standing, or had there
been great guns, with which earth batteries could have been formed. It
had not occurred to the public of Lower Canada that if York had been
burned, Sheaffe's retreat to Kingston, would have been no less
imperative than it was. He was, however, superseded in the command in
chief of Upper Canada by Major General De Rottenburgh.

The American fleet landed the troops at Niagara after this success, and
then sailed for Sackett's Harbour for reinforcements. The Commodore, an
energetic, clearheaded sailor, sent two of his vessels to cruise off
the harbour of Kingston, vigilantly, and then sent vessel after vessel,
at his convenience, with troops, up the lake to Michigan. There he
concentrated the whole of his ships, including his Kingston cruisers,
for an attack upon Fort George, in combination with the land force
under General Dearborn. The British were under the command of General
Vincent, who could not muster above nine hundred soldiers. It was early
on the morning of the 27th of May, that the enemy began the attack. The
fort was briskly cannonaded, and during the fire, Colonel Scott, with a
body of eight hundred American riflemen, effected a landing. But they
were promptly met by the British and compelled to give way, in
disorder. The Americans retreated to the beach and crept under cover of
the bank, from whence they kept up a galling fire, the British troops
being unable to dislodge them, on account of the heavy broadsides of
the American fleet, formed in Crescent shape, to protect their
soldiers. Indeed, under cover of this fire from the fleet, another body
of the enemy, numbering ten thousand men, effected a landing, and the
British were reluctantly compelled to retire. General Vincent blew up
the fort and fell back upon Burlington Heights, every inch of ground
being stoutly contested. Flushed with success, Dearborn, the American
General-in-Chief, now confidently anticipated the conquest of the whole
of Upper Canada, and pushed forward a body of three thousand infantry,
two hundred and fifty horse, and nine guns. But General Vincent having
learned of the enemy's advance, sent Colonel Harvey, with eight hundred
men, to impede their progress. Harvey, an experienced and brave
officer, was not long in discovering that the enemy kept a bad look
out. He resolved upon surprising them. Accordingly, he waited for the
darkness of night, under cover of which, a sudden attack was made so
successfully, that he made prisoners of two generals and a hundred and
fifty men, besides capturing four guns. It was now the enemy's turn to
retreat, and they did so in admirable confusion. Arrived at Fort George
a halt took place, but a fortnight elapsed before General Dearborn had
sufficiently recovered from the effect of this surprise to send out an
expedition of six hundred men to dislodge a British picquet, posted at
Beaver's Dam, near Queenstown. The dislodgement was most indifferently
effected, inasmuch as the expedition was waylaid on their passage
through the woods, by Captain Kerr, with a few Indians, and by
Lieutenant Fitzgibbons, at the head of forty-six of the 49th regiment,
in all, less than two hundred men, but so judiciously disposed as to
make the Americans believe that they were the light troops of a very
superior army, the approach of which was expected, and they, to the
number of five hundred, surrendered, with two guns and two standards.

It now became the turn of the British to invade, and early in July,
Colonel Bishop set out on an expedition to Black Rock, at the head of a
party of militia, aided by detachments of the 8th, 41st, and 49th
regiments of the line. He was perfectly successful. The enemies'
block-houses, stores, barracks, and dockyard were burned, and seven
pieces of ordnance, two hundred stand of arms, and a great quantity of
stores were brought away. But it was at great cost. While employed in
securing the stores, the British were fired upon, from the woods, by
some American militia and Indians, and while Captain Saunders, of the
41st, dropped, severely wounded, Colonel Bishop, who had planned, and
so gallantly executed the assault, was killed.

While these things were happening in the Far-Civilised-West of that
day, the British flotilla on Lake Champlain, had captured two American
schooners, the _Growler_ and _Eagle_, of eleven guns each, off
Isle-aux-Noix.

After it had become apparent that the Americans had the command of Lake
Ontario, and could visit to burn and destroy every village or
unfortified town, held by the British, some slight and very inadequate
exertion was made to remedy so distressing a state of affairs. In May,
Sir James L. Yeo, with several other naval officers and 450 seamen
arrived at Quebec, _en route_ for the lakes. Captains Barclay, Pring,
and Finnis, had been some time at Kingston, and were doing something in
the way of preparing for service the few, vessels at Kingston, by
courtesy called a fleet. Sir George Prevost and Sir James L. Yeo lost
little time in reaching Kingston together. The American fleet was off
Niagara, bombarding Fort George. It occurred to the two commanders that
an attack upon their naval station at Sackett's Harbour would not be
amiss, and it was resolved upon. About a thousand men were embarked on
board of the _Wolfe_, of 24 guns, the _Royal George_, of 24 guns, the
_Earl of Moira_, of 18 guns, and four armed schooners, each carrying
from ten to twelve guns, with a number of batteaux. The weather was
very fine. Everything was got in readiness for an expeditious landing.
The soldiers were transferred from the armed vessels to the batteaux,
so that no time might be lost in the debarkation. Two gun-boats were
placed in readiness, as a landing escort, The boats were under the
direction of Captain Mulcaster, of the Royal Navy, and the landing
under the immediate supervision of Sir George Prevost and Sir James L.
Yeo. It was expected that, in the absence of the American fleet and
army, the growing and formidable naval establishment of the enemy would
be temporarily rendered worthless. And the expectation was not an
unnatural one. It was, indeed, in a trifling degree, realised. There
was some injury done to Sackett's Harbor, but not of such a nature as
to produce a strong effect upon either Canadian minds or American
nerves. A number of boats, containing troops, from Oswego, were
dispersed, while doubling Stoney Point, and twelve of them, with 150
men on board, captured. But the loss to the British was the delay
caused by such an unlucky acquisition. The landing was deferred by it.
General Brown was put on the alert. He had time to make arrangements
and to collect troops. He planted 500 militia on the peninsula of Horse
Island, which is a sort of protection wall for the harbour. He ordered
them to be still and close, keep their powder dry, and reserve their
fire. And they did their best, in accordance with these instructions,
until the fleet opened a heavy cannonade to cover the landing of the
invaders, when General Brown's militiamen quaked exceedingly. When the
troops had landed, and the American militia had lost, by death, their
immediate commander, Colonel Mills, they fled with the utmost
precipitation. But it was the conduct of these very cowards that
afterwards alarmed, the ever suspicious Sir George Prevost, and caused,
to a very considerable extent, the almost failure of the expedition.
The British columns were advancing somewhat rapidly towards Fort
Tomkins, when they were met by Colonel Backus, at the head of 400
regulars, and some militia, hastily assembled from the neighboring
towns. A sharp contest ensued. Colonel Backus was mortally wounded. His
regulars still maintained their ground, but a serious impression had
been made upon his line. On the militia, so strong an impression had
been made that before General Brown could bring up, to the assistance
of Backus, 100 of the party dispersed at the landing, these irregulars
fled by a road leading south westwardly, through a wood. The regulars
stood firm. Captain Gray, commanding the British advanced corps fell,
and the suspicious mind of Prevost fancied a snare. He saw the regular
soldiery of the enemy standing unmoved; he had learned that a regiment
of American regulars, under Colonel Tutle, were marching at double
step, to the scene of action; and he fancied that the retreating
militia were not at all afraid, but brilliantly executing a circuitous
march to gain the rear of the British line, and cut off their retreat.
It was true Fort Tomkins was about to fall into British hands. Already
the officer in charge of Navy Point, agreeably to orders, and supposing
the fort to be lost, had set on fire the naval magazine, containing all
the stores captured at York; the hospital and barracks were
illuminating the lake by their grand conflagration; and a frigate on
the stocks had been set on fire, only to be extinguished, when Sir
George Prevost's mind became unsettled, concerning the ulterior designs
of the enemy. In the very moment of fully accomplishing the purpose of
the expedition, he ordered a retreat; the troops were re-embarked
without annoyance; the fleet returned safely to Kingston, and the
Canadian public suspected that Sir George Prevost, as a military
commander, had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. They
felt, indeed, most acutely, that Major General Isaac Brock was dead,
and that he was not replaced by Sir George Prevost.

In the west, the Americans, under Harrison, exerted themselves to
recover Michigan. They were blockaded, it is true, and inactive within
Fort George, but, on Lake Erie, the war was vigorously prosecuted.
General Proctor was kept particularly busy. The Americans were
inconveniently near. They showed no disposition to move. They had
settled down and were practicing masterly inactivity at Sandusky.
Proctor determined upon disturbing them. He moved rapidly upon Lower
Sandusky, and invested it with five hundred regulars and militia, and
upwards of three thousand Indians. The Indians were commanded by
Tecumseh. Having battered the fort well and made a breach Proctor
determined upon carrying the place by assault. The Indians, however,
were worthless for the assault of a fortified place. Concealed in the
grass of the prairie, or hidden in the trees of the forest, they could
fire steadily and watch their opportunity to rush upon the foe, but
they had a horror of great guns and stone walls. They kept out of range
of the American cannon. Nothing could induce them to consent even to
follow their British allies up to the breach. The assault was,
nevertheless, determined upon, and Colonel Short led the storming party
of regulars and militia. Under cover of the fire of cannon the gallant
band reached the summit of the glacis and stood with only the ditch
between them and the fort. The heavy fire of the enemy upon men in a
position so exposed at first produced some confusion; but the storming
party soon rallied and leaped into the ditch. It was then that they
were smitten with such a fire of grape and musketry as no men could
long withstand. The assailants retreated, leaving Colonel Short, three
officers, and fifty-two men dead in the ditch, and having forty-one of
their number wounded.

General Proctor, finding his force inadequate to carry the fort by
assault, raised the siege and retired to Amherstburgh.

Although it was all important to have and maintain the command of the
lakes, very little was done by the British with that view. It was
especially necessary to obtain the command of Lakes Erie, Ontario and
Champlain. No great aggressive movement could have been easily effected
while the British had the command of the lakes. But on Lake Ontario the
British fleet was inferior to that of the American, the American
Captain Perry had almost established himself on Lake Erie, and on Lake
Champlain the British had not a single vessel larger than a gun-boat,
and very few of them. The excuse was that every vessel cost a thousand
pounds a ton; that timber, nor iron, nor anything required for
shipbuilding was obtainable in a province which was even then
compensating for the check in the Baltic timber trade, in a province
which abounds in iron, and was then quite capable of building large
sea-going craft at Quebec. While it was in truth no more difficult for
England to cover the lakes with cannon than it was for the United
States to do so, England kept sending out, at great expense, timber,
pitch, materials in iron, water casks, and such like to Quebec and
Kingston, with some thirty or forty shipwrights, and less than a
hundred sailors to man the flotillas of three lakes. Neither the
Admiralty nor the Ordnance had time to make enquiries concerning
Canada, or even to think of the American war. All eyes were upon
Wellington in Spain. The attention of the people of England was not
directed towards Canada. A wide sea rolled between the two countries,
and, besides, there was an indistinct notion that Canada was wholly
inhabited by Frenchmen, who might take care of themselves or not, as
they pleased. The two first vessels belonging to the British on Lake
Champlain, were built by the Americans. The British were contented with
their fort at Isle-aux-Noix, and rejoiced in the luxury of two
gun-boats. It was on a lovely morning very early in June, that a sail
was seen stretching over a point of land, formed by a bed in the river
Chambly, and about six miles distant from the fort. Another sail
followed closely, and the shrewd suspicion seized upon Colonel Taylor,
of the 100th foot, commanding the garrison, that the visitants were
vessels of war. He determined to war with the two strangers, _per mare
et terram_. He converted some of his soldiery into marines, manned his
three gun-boats, and placing three artillerymen in each boat, proceeded
towards the enemy. But he took the additional precaution of sending
down both shores of the river a few detachments from the fort. The
sloops of war came up majestically, the star-spangled banner waved
gracefully in the gentle morning air, and the American commanders were
guessing the effect of their first broadside upon Isle-aux-Noix, when
they were met by a heavy and well directed fire of grape from the
gun-boats, and by a steady torrent of bullets from the shore. Still
they tacked shortly from shore to shore, and every time they were in
stays, a shower of bullets swept the decks, while the grape of the
gun-boats whistled through the rigging. From half past four in the
morning until half past eight, the battle raged, but then it was
necessary to run one of the sloops ashore, to prevent her from sinking,
and both surrendered. The _Growler_ and the _Eagle_ were worth the
trouble incurred in capturing them. Each mounted eleven guns. They had
long eighteens upon their forecastles, and their broadside guns were
composed of twelves and sixes. The crew of each vessel consisted of
thirty-five men and between the two vessels there was a company of
marines, who embarked on the previous evening at Champlain. Nor was the
cost to the captors very great. No one was killed and only three men
were severely wounded, while the enemy suffered severely in killed and
wounded, and a hundred men were made prisoners.

These vessels now called the _Shannon_ and the _Blake_, as
forget-me-nots of an action recently fought, but not yet noticed, in
Chesapeake Bay, were speedily turned to excellent use. It was conceived
expedient to destroy the barracks, hospitals and stores at Plattsburgh,
Burlington, Champlain, and Swanton, if possible, and an expedition was
accordingly fitted out at Isle-aux-Noix. The two captured sloops of war
were repaired and made ready for the lake. Captain Pring, from Lake
Ontario, was promoted to the rank of commander and sent to take
command, but the sloop of war _Wasp_, having shortly afterwards arrived
at Quebec, Captain Everard, with his whole crew, were sent to
Isle-aux-Noix, and as senior officer assumed the command of the two
vessels and the three gun-boats. The squadron sailed on the 29th of
July, with about nine hundred men on board, consisting of detachments
of the 13th, 100th, and 103rd regiments of the line, under Lieutenants
Colonel Taylor and Smelt, some royal artillery under Captain Gordon,
and a few militia, as batteaux men, under Colonel Murray. The
expedition was altogether successful. At Plattsburgh, the American
General, Moore, made no opposition to the landing of the British, but
retired with fifteen hundred soldiers, Murray, meanwhile, destroying
the arsenal, public buildings, commissariat stores, and the new
barracks, capable of accommodating five thousand men. Neither did the
squadron lie idly by. Captains Everard and Pring, in the _Growler_ and
_Eagle_, proceeded to Burlington, and threw the place into the utmost
consternation. Gen'l. Hampton, who was encamped there with four
thousand men, was unable to prevent the capture and destruction of four
vessels. And the two ships did not linger there either unnecessarily.
They went back to Plattsburgh, re-embarked the troops, and proceeded to
Swanton, Colonel Murray sending a detachment to Champlain to destroy
the barracks and blockhouse. At Swanton the object of the expedition
was accomplished, and the expedition returned without casualty.

Public opinion had its effect upon the Admiralty, notwithstanding the
stubborn resistance of the old Lords, who still privately persisted in
the notion that an old tub, manned by monkeys, if commanded by an
officer in the royal navy, was a match for the best American frigate
that ever floated. There had for some time back been considerable
activity in the English dockyards. Several vessels were commenced on
the model of the American frigates, and the commanders of frigates and
sloops of war, on the American coast, were cautioned not to expose
themselves to certain destruction by attacking large and heavily armed
vessels, only nominally of the same rank or class as themselves. There
was to be a real, not an apparent equality. There was to be an equality
in tonnage, an equality in the number of guns, an equality in the
weight of metal, an equality in the thickness of a ship's sides, and
above all an equality in men, so far as such equality could be
ascertained. Equality in sailing power was of great importance, but
where it was wanting, the superior sailor, if superior in metal and men
had an advantage which nothing but a calm or a lucky hit aloft could
destroy. The crews of every ship on the North American Station were to
be exercised in gunnery. Wisdom had been luckily forced upon the
Admiralty. And the result was good. Sir John Borlase, the naval
commander, in North America, blockaded every harbour in the United
States. American commerce was ruined. The carrying trade of the
Atlantic was no longer in American hands. The public revenue sank from
twenty-four millions of dollars annually, to eight millions. Even had
the Americans possessed the means of building new frigates, the
expenditure would have been useless, while Sir John Borlase had the
command of the sea. Congress did authorise the commencement of four new
seventy-fours, and of four forty-four gun frigates, with six new sloops
for the ocean, and as many vessels of every description, as
circumstances would show the necessity for, on the lakes.

Admiral Cockburn, at the head of a light squadron, was most annoying to
the Americans. Not only did he blockade the Chesapeake and Delaware
inlets, but he scoured every creek and river. Every now and then
gun-boats were sent on excursions, and marines landed to damage naval
stores and arsenals. He was a kind of legalized pirate, who darted in
to a harbour, bay, or port, doing every imaginable kind of mischief and
running off.

About this time there were cruising off Boston two ships of equal
strength, the _Shannon_ and the _Tenedos_. Captain Broke, the commander
of the _Shannon_, was the senior officer, and having determined upon a
combat, if it were possible to effect it, between the American frigate
_Chesapeake_, then in Boston harbour, where she had passed the winter,
and his own vessel, he sent the _Tenedos_ to sea, with instructions not
to return for three weeks. Captain Broke had laboriously and anxiously
drilled his men. He had sighted his guns and used them often. In a
word, he had by long continued training brought his crew to the highest
state of discipline and subordination. They could fire ball to a
nicety. At sea and in harbour he had kept his men at great gun
practice. He was in a position to cope with any forty-four gun frigate,
belonging to the United States, for, though the _Shannon_ was only
pierced for 38 guns, she carried 52. When the _Tenedos_ had put to sea,
Captain Broke sent in a challenge to Captain Lawrence, of the
_Chesapeake_, entreating him to try the fortunes of their respective
flags in _even combat_. The _Chesapeake_ had 49 guns. Captain Broke
immediately lay close into Boston Light House, and the _Chesapeake_ was
quickly under weigh. It is said that Captain Lawrence had not received
the challenge of his opponent when he stood out of the harbour, but,
however that may be, the _Chesapeake_ was escorted to sea by a flotilla
of barges and pleasure boats. Victory, indeed, was considered certain
by the Americans. Nay, so very certain were the inhabitants of Boston
that the _Shannon_ would either be sunk or towed into port that,
counting their chickens before they were hatched, they prepared a
public supper to greet the victors on their return to the harbour, with
their prisoners. It was otherwise. Captain Broke saw with delight, from
the masthead of the _Shannon_, that his challenge was to be satisfactorily
replied to. The _Shannon_ was cleared for action, and waited for the
_Chesapeake_. She had not long to wait. The _Chesapeake_ came bowling
along with three flags flying, on which were inscribed--"Sailors,
rights and free trade." The _Shannon_ had her union jack at the
foremast, and a somewhat faded blue ensign at the mizen peak. There
were two other ensigns rolled into a ball ready to be fastened to the
haulyard and hoisted in case of need. But her guns were well loaded,
alternately with two round shot and a hundred and fifty musket balls,
and with one round and one double-headed shot in each gun. The enemy
hauled up within two hundred yards of the mizen beam and cheered. The
_Shannon_ cheered in return, and then the bravest held his breath for a
time. A moment more and the _Shannon's_ decks flashed fire. With
deliberate aim each gun along her sides was discharged, and the enemy,
in passing, fired with good effect his whole broadside. The _Shannon's_
shot, however, told upon the rigging of the _Chesapeake_, and upon her
men, and after two or three broad sides, the _Chesapeake_ in attempting
to haul her foresail up fell on board the _Shannon_, whose starboard
bower anchor locked with the _Shannon's_ mizen chains. The great guns,
with the exception of the _Shannon's_ two aftermost guns ceased firing.
The _Chesapeake's_ stern was beaten in, and her decks swept. There was
now a sharp fire of musketry from both sides, but Captain Broke
perceiving that the _Chesapeake's_ men had left their guns, called up
his boarders, at the same time ordering the two ships to be lashed
together. And Mr. Stevens, the _Shannon's_ boatswain, set about the
execution of the latter order. His left arm was hacked off by the
enemy's marines, and he was mortally wounded by a shot from the
_Chesapeake's_ tops. He proceeded, nevertheless, in fastening the two
ships together, and then dropped in death between the vessels. Captain
Lawrence was wounded and carried below, when Captain Broke, at the head
of his boarders, leapt upon the _Chesapeake's_ quarter-deck. The
enemy's crew were soon overpowered and driven below. Forcing his way
forward, the _Shannon's_ men shut down the _Chesapeake's_ hatches and
kept up a fire on the men in the tops, while the _Shannon's_ men at the
same time, under Mr. Smith, forced their way from the foreyard to the
_Chesapeake's_ mainyard, and soon cleared the tops. Captain Broke was
at this time assailed furiously by three American sailors, who had
previously submitted, and was knocked down by the butt end of a musket,
but as he rose he had the satisfaction of seeing the American flag
hauled down and the proud old British union floating over it in
triumph. Fifteen minutes had only elapsed and the _Chesapeake_ was
entirely in the hands of the British. There was one lamentable mishap.
Lieutenant Watt, who hauled down the enemy's colours was, with two of
his men, killed by a discharge of musketry from the _Shannon's_
marines, in the belief that the conflict still continued. The
_Chesapeake_ had forty-seven killed and ninety-eight wounded, and the
_Shannon_ lost in killed twenty-four, while fifty-nine had been
wounded. It was so ascertained that on equal terms England still held
the supremacy of the seas, and the exultation in England was so great
that every right-minded man went with the government when they made
Captain Broke a baronet. The broadside guns of the _Shannon_ were 25,
of the _Chesapeake_ 25; the weight of metal in the former was 538 lbs.,
and of the latter 590 lbs.; while the _Shannon_ had 306 and the
_Chesapeake_ 376 men.

The _Chesapeake_ was carried into Halifax, where her gallant,
gentlemanly, and ill-starred commander died and was buried, with full
military honors, in the presence of all the British officers on the
station, who uncovered themselves as they laid into the grave all that
was earthly of their noble foe.

The tide of fortune on the sea had now turned in favor of Great
Britain. On the 14th of August, the _Argus_, of twenty guns, employed
in carrying out Mr. Crawford, the American Minister to France, was met
after having landed the minister off St. David's, at the mouth of the
Irish channel, by the British brig _Pelican_, of eighteen guns, more
heavily armed, though carrying fewer guns, and better manned than the
_Argus_, so that, everything considered, the vessels were tolerably
well matched. As a matter of course they fought, and the _Pelican_, one
of the improved brigs, soon out-manoeuvred and raked her antagonist.
Captain Allen, of the _Argus_, fell at the first broadside. The _Argus_
was ultimately obliged to surrender with a loss of six killed and
seventeen wounded, her opponent having only three killed and five
wounded.

It was not long after this that the British brig _Boxer_, of only
fourteen guns and sixty-six men, fell a prize to the American brig
_Enterprise_, of sixteen guns and one hundred and twenty men, but
afterwards, throughout the war, single combats, where there was even an
approach to equality, terminated in favor of the British. Captain
Blythe, of the _Boxer_, and the commander of the _Enterprise_,
Lieutenant Burrows, were buried in one grave, at Portland in Maine,
with military honors.

Thus were the favors of Mars still balanced with tolerable fairness
between the combatants.

Between Upper and Lower Canada the communication by either land or
water, in summer, was very imperfect, during the war. There was then no
Rideau Canal, connecting Kingston with the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence.
And there was neither the Lachine, the Beauharnois, the Cornwall nor
any other canal by which the dangers and difficulties of the St.
Lawrence rapids might be avoided. Only batteaux and canoes plied
between Upper and Lower Canada. A kind of flat-bottomed boat, of from
35 to 40 feet in length, and about six feet beam in the centre,
carrying from four to four and a half tons, was only available for the
transport of passengers, goods, wares, and merchandise. The boat was
worked by oars, a mast and sail, drag-ropes for towing, and long poles
for pushing them through the rapids, while the bow was kept towards the
shore by a tow line held by the boat's crew or attached to horses. From
ten to twelve days were occupied in the voyage from Montreal or Lachine
to Kingston. To convey stores from Lachine to Kingston, during the war,
required some tact. On one side of the river were the British
batteries, while exactly opposite was an American fort or earthwork,
which as the batteaux poled past Prescott or Brockville, could throw a
round shot or two in their immediate vicinity without very much
trouble. Indeed the Americans did very quietly send one or two cruisers
and privateers to dodge about that marine paradise, the Thousand
Islands, forming the delta of Lake Ontario, and covered to this day
with timber to the water's edge, islands of all sizes and of all forms,
gently rising out of the limpid rippling stream, or boldly standing
forth from the deep blue water, presenting a rugged, rocky moss-clad
front to the wonderstruck beholder. On the 20th of July, some cruisers
from Sackett's Harbour, succeeded in surprising and capturing, at
daybreak, a brigade of batteaux laden with provisions, under convoy of
a gun-boat. They made off with their prize to Goose Creek, which is not
far from Gananoque. At Kingston the loss of the supplies was soon
ascertained, and Lieutenant Scott, of the Royal Navy, was despatched
with a detachment of the 100th regiment, in gun-boats, to intercept the
plunderers. At the lower end of Long Island, he ascertained the retreat
of the enemy, and waited patiently for the morning. In the evening,
still later, a fourth gun-boat with a detachment of the 41st regiment
came up, and having passed the night in bright anticipations of glory,
the rescuing gun-boats proceeded at three in the morning to Goose
Creek. The enemy had gone well up and had judiciously entrenched
themselves behind logs, while they had adopted the Russian plan of
blocking up the entrance to their harbor where the Creek became so
narrow that the attacking gun-boats found it necessary to pole up even
that far. Lieutenant Scott set his men to work, to remove the barriers
to his ingress, but a brisk fire soon caused him to desist, and indeed
he was very nearly disabled. The only gun-boat that could be brought to
bear upon the enemy was already disabled, and the consequences might
have been disastrous but for the gallant conduct of the soldiers, who
leaped from the sternmost boats, up to their necks, carrying their
muskets high overhead, and charged the enemy on landing, causing them
to retreat with precipitation behind their entrenchment. While this was
being done, the gun-boats were got afloat and put to rights, and the
soldiers expeditiously re-embarking the re-capture of the provisions
was abandoned. Captain Milnes, a volunteer aid-de-camp to the Commander
of the Forces, was killed.

A second boat expedition from Kingston failed, Sir James Yeo, conceived
that he might out cut of Sackett's Harbour the new American ship
_Pike_, the equipment of which Commodore Chancey was superintending. He
arrived at the mouth of the harbor, but the enemy having accidentally
heard of his errand, Sir James abandoned a scheme that could only have
been effected by surprise. In July, the American fleet appeared on the
lake with augmented force. Colonel Scott, with a company of artillery
and a considerable number of other soldiers was on board, _en route_
for Burlington Heights. He was most anxious to destroy the British
stores there, the more especially as the place was only occupied by
Major Maule, at the head of a small detachment of regulars.
Lieutenant-Colonel Harvey, the Deputy Adjutant-General of the army,
shrewdly suspecting the design of the enemy, despatched Colonel
Battersby from York, who arrived in time to re-inforce Maule. Scott
made no attack, but with the advice, or at all events, the concurrence
of the commodore, did a much wiser thing. The expedition sailed upon
York, which Lieutenant-Colonel Battersby had evacuated to save
Burlington. A landing was effected at York, of course, without
opposition; the storehouses, barracks, and public buildings were
burned, and such stores as were worth carrying away, taken. In Lake
Champlain, on the same afternoon, Colonel Murray and Captains Everard
and Pringle were retaliating at Plattsburgh, Burlington, Champlain, and
Swanton. Commodore Chancey having effected his purpose sailed for
Niagara, whither he was followed by Sir James Yeo, and looked in upon
on the 31st of July. Chancey, without loss of time, raised his anchors
and stood out of the bay, bearing down upon the British squadron. Sir
James manoeuvred, keeping out of range, and indeed coquetted with the
enemy, until he had an opportunity of pouncing upon two of his vessels,
the _Julia_ and _Growler_, which he cut off and captured. He still
pursued the same tantalizing course of action, and Commodore Chancey
became completely disheartened, when the _Scourge_ of eight, and the
_Hamilton_ of nine guns, in endeavouring to escape from the British,
capsized under a press of sail, and went down, all hands perishing,
except sixteen who were picked up by the boats of the opposing
squadron. Immediately after this disaster he stood off for Sackett's
Harbour, and arrived there on the 13th of August. He merely took in
provisions, however, and again sailed for Niagara, arriving there early
in September. On the 7th the British fleet appeared off the harbour,
and Chancey stood out into the lake. The two fleets manoeuvred as
before, avoiding close quarters, and indeed, for full five days, hardly
exchanged a shot. But on the 28th of September, the fleets approached
each other, and a sharp engagement ensued between the two flag ships.
The _Wolfe_, in which Sir James Yeo's pendant was hoisted, lost her
main and mizen topmasts, and only that the _Royal George_ ran in
between the _Wolfe_ and the _Pike_, enabling the former to haul off and
repair, the British flag ship would have been captured. As it was, Sir
James Yeo made off with his fleet to take refuge under Burlington
Heights.[21] Soon after, the American fleet took troops from Fort
George to Sackett's Harbour, from whence an expedition was being fitted
out, in the way, capturing five out of seven small vessels, from York,
containing 250 men of DeWatteville's regiment, intended to reinforce
the garrison at Kingston.

      [21] The fleet consisted of the _Wolfe_ 23; the _Royal
      George_ 22; the _Melville_ 14; the _Earl Moira_ 14;
      the _Sir Sydney Smith_ 12; and the _Beresford_ 12.

On the lakes of Upper Canada, the fair face of fortune was turned away
from the British. As yet the capricious lady had only frowned, but now
she was positively sulky. A serious and indeed dreadful disaster, which
could not be afterwards repaired, but entailed loss upon loss to the
British, occurred on Lake Erie. The British provinces were indeed
exposed by it to the most imminent danger. At one blow all the
advantages gained by Brocke were lost. On Lake Erie as on Lake Ontario,
both the British and the Americans exerted themselves in the
construction of war vessels. The great drawback to the British was the
want of seamen. Captain Barclay, when appointed to the command on Lake
Erie, in May, took with him fifty English seamen, to man two ships, two
schooners, a brig and a sloop, the rest of the crews being made up of
240 soldiers and 80 Canadians. Captain Perry, the American commander,
had two more vessels, an equal number of guns, double the weight of
metal, and was fully manned by experienced seamen. Captain Barclay
sailed from Amherstburgh and stretched his little squadron across the
entrance to Presque Isle. The American squadron, under Perry, was
riding at anchor, unable to put out, because the bar at the entrance of
the harbour prevented it from crossing, except with the guns out, an
operation not considered perfectly safe when done in the face of an
enemy. Captain Barclay was under the necessity of momentarily leaving
his station, and his opponent, Perry, crossed the bar. Barclay in turn
became the blockaded party. He made with all haste for Amherstburgh and
was shut in by Perry. Barclay practiced his soldiers at the guns, and
learned his Canadians how to handle the ropes. He was indefatigable in
his exertions to render his crew as efficient as such a crew could be
made on shipboard. He yet feared to meet Perry and his picked crews,
but his provisions fell short, and he was compelled to put out. The
result was a battle, the last thing to have been desired, where so much
depended on the issue. Victory was stoutly contested for on both sides.
At 11 o'clock, on the forenoon of the 10th of September, the American
squadron, consisting of nine vessels, and the British squadron,
consisting of six vessels, formed in lines of battle. At a quarter
before 12, Captain Barclay's ship, the _Queen Charlotte_, opened a
tremendous fire upon the _Lawrence_, the flag ship of Commodore Perry.
The _Lawrence_ was torn to pieces. She became unmanageable. Except the
Commodore and four or five others, every man on board was either killed
or wounded. Perry abandoned her, and the colours were hauled down; but
he only left one ship to rehoist his flag in another, as yet untouched.
He boarded the _Niagara_, of twenty guns, and a breeze springing up
behind his ships, which as yet had not been in action, he obtained the
weather gage of the British, and made it necessary for them to wear