To complete the dispersion of force, Eustis forgot all about the military detachments at the western forts. Fort Dearborn (now Chicago) and Michilimackinac, important as points of connection with the western tribes, were left to the devices of their own inadequate garrisons. In 1801 Dearborn himself, Eustis's predecessor as Secretary of War, had recommended a peace strength of two hundred men at Michilimackinac, usually known as 'Mackinaw.' In 1812 there were not so many at Mackinaw and Chicago put together.

It was not a promising outlook to an American military eye--the cart before the horse, the thick end of the wedge turned towards the enemy, three incompetent men giving disconnected orders on the northern frontier, and the western posts neglected. But Eustis was full of self-confidence. Hull was 'enthusing' his militiamen.

And Dearborn was for the moment surpa.s.sing both, by proposing to 'operate, with effect, at the same moment, against Niagara, Kingston, and Montreal.'

From the Canadian side the outlook was also dark enough to the trained eye; though not for the same reasons. The menace here was from an enemy whose general resources exceeded those in Canada by almost twenty to one. The silver lining to the cloud was the ubiquitous British Navy and the superior training and discipline of the various little military forces immediately available for defence.

The Maritime Provinces formed a subordinate command, based on the strong naval station of Halifax, where a regular garrison was always maintained by the Imperial government. They were never invaded, or even seriously threatened. It was only in 1814 that they came directly into the scene of action, and then only as the base from which the invasion of Maine was carried out.

We must therefore turn to Quebec as the real centre of Canadian defence, which, indeed, it was best fitted to be, not only from its strategical situation, but from the fact that it was the seat of the governor-general and commander-in-chief, Sir George Prevost. Like Sir John Sherbrooke, the governor of Nova Scotia, Prevost was a professional soldier with an unblemished record in the Army. But, though naturally anxious to do well, and though very suavely diplomatic, he was not the man, as we shall often see, either to face a military crisis or to stop the Americans from stealing marches on him by negotiation.

On the outbreak of war he was at headquarters in Quebec, dividing his time between his civil and military duties, greatly concerned with international diplomacy, and always full of caution.

At York (now Toronto) in Upper Canada a very different man was meanwhile preparing to checkmate Hull's 'north-western army' of Americans, which was threatening to invade the province. Isaac Brock was not only a soldier born and bred, but, alone among the leaders on either side, he had the priceless gift of genius. He was now forty-two, having been born in Guernsey on October 6, 1769, in the same year as Napoleon and Wellington. Like the Wolfes and the Montcalms, the Brocks had followed the n.o.ble profession of arms for many generations. Nor were the De Lisles, his mother's family, less distinguished for the number of soldiers and sailors they had been giving to England ever since the Norman Conquest. Brock himself, when only twenty-nine, had commanded the 49th Foot in Holland under Sir John Moore, the future hero of Corunna, and Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was so soon to fall victorious in Egypt. Two years after this he had stood beside another and still greater man at Copenhagen, 'mighty Nelson,' who there gave a striking instance of how a subordinate inspired by genius can win the day by disregarding the over-caution of a commonplace superior.

We may be sure that when Nelson turned his blind eye on Parker's signal of recall the lesson was not thrown away on Brock.

For ten long years of inglorious peace Brock had now been serving on in Canada, while his comrades in arms were winning distinction on the battlefields of Europe. This was partly due to his own excellence: he was too good a man to be spared after his first five years were up in 1807; for the era of American hostility had then begun.

He had always been observant. But after 1807 he had redoubled his efforts to 'learn Canada,' and learn her thoroughly. People and natural resources, products and means of transport, armed strength on both sides of the line and the best plan of defence, all were studied with unremitting zeal. In 1811 he became the acting lieutenant-governor and commander of the forces in Upper Canada, where he soon found out that the members of parliament returned by the 'American vote' were bent on thwarting every effort he could make to prepare the province against the impending storm. In 1812, on the very day he heard that war had been declared, he wished to strike the unready Americans hard and instantly at one of their three accessible points of a.s.sembly-Fort Niagara, at the upper end of Lake Ontario, opposite Fort George, which stood on the other side of the Niagara river; Sackett's Harbour, at the lower end of Lake Ontario, thirty-six miles from Kingston; and Ogdensburg, on the upper St Lawrence, opposite Fort Prescott. But Sir George Prevost, the governor-general, was averse from an open act of war against the Northern States, because they were hostile to Napoleon and in favour of maintaining peace with the British; while Brock himself was soon turned from this purpose by news of Hull's American invasion farther west, as well as by the necessity of a.s.sembling his own thwarting little parliament at York.

The nine days' session, from July 27 to August 5, yielded the indispensable supplies. But the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, as a necessary war measure, was prevented by the disloyal minority, some of whom wished to see the British defeated and all of whom were ready to break their oath of allegiance whenever it suited them to do so. The patriotic majority, returned by the votes of United Empire Loyalists and all others who were British born and bred, issued an address that echoed the appeal made by Brock himself in the following words: 'We are engaged in an awful and eventful contest. By unanimity and despatch in our councils and by vigour in our operations we may teach the enemy this lesson: That a country defended by free men, enthusiastically devoted to the cause of their King and Const.i.tution, can never be conquered.'

On August 5, being at last clear of his immediate duties as a civil governor, Brock threw himself ardently into the work of defeating Hull, who had crossed over into Canada from Detroit on July 11 and issued a proclamation at Sandwich the following day. This proclamation shows admirably the sort of impression which the invaders wished to produce on Canadians.

The United States are sufficiently powerful to afford you every security consistent with their rights and your expectations. I tender you the invaluable blessings of Civil, Political, and Religious Liberty... The arrival of an army of Friends must be hailed by you with a cordial welcome. You will be emanc.i.p.ated from Tyranny and Oppression and restored to the dignified station of Freemen... If, contrary to your own interest and the just expectation of my country, you should take part in the approaching contest, you will be considered and treated as enemies and the horrors and calamities of war will Stalk before you. If the barbarous and Savage policy of Great Britain be pursued, and the savages let loose to murder our Citizens and butcher our women and children, this war will be a war of extermination. The first stroke with the Tomahawk, the first attempt with the Scalping Knife, will be the Signal for one indiscriminate scene of desolation. No white man found fighting by the Side of an Indian will be taken prisoner. Instant destruction will be his Lot...

This was war with a vengeance. But Hull felt less confidence than his proclamation was intended to display. He knew that, while the American government had been warned in January about the necessity of securing the naval command of Lake Erie, no steps had yet been taken to secure it.

Ever since the beginning of March, when he had written a report based on his seven years' experience as governor of Michigan, he had been gradually learning that Eustis was bent on acting in defiance of all sound military advice. In April he had accepted his new position very much against his will and better judgment. In May he had taken command of the a.s.sembling militiamen at Dayton in Ohio. In June he had been joined by a battalion of inexperienced regulars. And now, in July, he was already feeling the ill effects of having to carry on what should have been an amphibious campaign without the a.s.sistance of any proper force afloat; for on the 2nd ten days before he issued his proclamation at Sandwich, Lieutenant Rolette, an enterprising French-Canadian officer in the Provincial Marine, had cut his line of communication along the Detroit and had taken an American schooner which contained his official plan of campaign, besides a good deal of baggage and stores.

There were barely six hundred British on the line of the Detroit when Hull first crossed over to Sandwich with twenty-five hundred men. These six hundred comprised less than 150 regulars, about 300 militia, and some 150 Indians.

Yet Hull made no decisive effort against the feeble little fort of Malden, which was the only defence of Amherstburg by land. The distance was nothing, only twelve miles south from Sandwich. He sent a sort of flying column against it. But this force went no farther than half-way, where the Americans were checked at the bridge over the swampy little Riviere aux Canards by the Indians under Tec.u.mseh, the great War Chief of whom we shall soon hear more.

Hull's failure to take Fort Malden was one fatal mistake.

His failure to secure his communications southward from Detroit was another. Apparently yielding to the prevalent American idea that a safe base could be created among friendly Canadians without the trouble of a regular campaign, he sent off raiding parties up the Thames.

According to his own account, these parties 'penetrated sixty miles into the settled part of the province.'

According to Brock, they 'ravaged the country as far as the Moravian Town.' But they gained no permanent foothold.

By the beginning of August Hull's position had already become precarious. The Canadians had not proved friendly.

The raid up the Thames and the advance towards Amherstburg had both failed. And the first British reinforcements had already begun to arrive. These were very small. But even a few good regulars helped to discourage Hull; and the new British commander, Colonel Procter of the 41st, was not yet to be faced by a task beyond his strength.

Worse yet for the Americans, Brock might soon be expected from the east; the Provincial Marine still held the water line of communication from the south; and dire news had just come in from the west.

The moment Brock had heard of the declaration of war he had sent orders post-haste to Captain Roberts at St Joseph's Island, either to attack the Americans at Michilimackinac or stand on his own defence. Roberts received Brock's orders on the 15th of July. The very next day he started for Michilimackinac with 45 men of the Royal Veterans, 180 French-Canadian voyageurs, 400 Indians, and two 'unwieldy' iron six-pounders. Surprise was essential, to prevent the Americans from destroying their stores; and the distance was a good fifty miles.

But 'by the almost unparalleled exertions of the Canadians who manned the boats, we arrived at the place of Rendezvous at 3 o'clock the following morning.' One of the iron six-pounders was then hauled up the heights, which rise to eight hundred feet, and trained on the dumbfounded Americans, while the whole British force took post for storming. The American commandant, Lieutenant Hanks, who had only fifty-seven effective men, thereupon surrendered without firing a shot.

The news of this bold stroke ran like wildfire through the whole North-West. The effect on the Indians was tremendous, immediate, and wholly in favour of the British.

In the previous November Tec.u.mseh's brother, known far and wide as the 'Prophet,' had been defeated on the banks of the Tippecanoe, a river of Indiana, by General Harrison, of whom we shall hear in the next campaign. This battle, though small in itself, was looked upon as the typical victory of the dispossessing Americans; so the British seizure of Michilimackinac was hailed with great joy as being a most effective counter-stroke. Nor was this the only reason for rejoicing. Michilimackinac and St Joseph's commanded the two lines of communication between the western wilds and the Great Lakes; so the possession of both by the British was more than a single victory, it was a promise of victories to come. No wonder Hull lamented this 'opening of the hive,' which 'let the swarms' loose all over the wilds on his inland flank and rear.

He would have felt more uneasy still if he had known what was to happen when Captain Heald received his orders at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) on August 9. Hull had ordered Heald to evacuate the fort as soon as possible and rejoin headquarters. Heald had only sixty-six men, not nearly enough to overawe the surrounding Indians. News of the approaching evacuation spread quickly during the six days of preparation. The Americans failed to destroy the strong drink in the fort. The Indians got hold of it, became ungovernably drunk, and killed half of Heald's men before they had gone a mile. The rest surrendered and were spared. Heald and his wife were then sent to Mackinaw, where Roberts treated them very kindly and sent them on to Pittsburg. The whole affair was one between Indians and Americans alone. But it was naturally used by the war party to inflame American feeling against all things British.

While Hull was writing to Fort Dearborn and hearing bad news from Michilimackinac, he was also getting more and more anxious about his own communications to the south.

With no safe base in Canada, and no safe line of transport by water from Lake Erie to the village of Detroit, he decided to clear the road which ran north and south beside the Detroit river. But this was now no easy task for his undisciplined forces, as Colonel Procter was bent on blocking the same road by sending troops and Indians across the river. On August 5, the day Brock prorogued his parliament at York, Tec.u.mseh ambushed Hull's first detachment of two hundred men at Brownstown, eighteen miles south of Detroit. On the 7th Hull began to withdraw his forces from the Canadian side. On the 8th he ordered six hundred men to make a second attempt to clear the southern road. But on the 9th these men were met at Maguaga, only fourteen miles south of Detroit, by a mixed force of British-regulars, militia, and Indians. The superior numbers of the Americans enabled them to press the British back at first. But, on the 10th, when the British showed a firm front in a new position, the Americans retired discouraged. Next day Hull withdrew the last of his men from Canadian soil, exactly one month after they had first set foot upon it. The following day was spent in consulting his staff and trying to reorganize his now unruly militia. On the evening of the 13th he made his final effort to clear the one line left, by sending out four hundred picked men under his two best colonels, McArthur and Ca.s.s, who were ordered to make an inland detour through the woods.

That same night Brock stepped ash.o.r.e at Amherstburg.

CHAPTER IV

1812: BROCK AT DETROIT AND QUEENSTON HEIGHTS

The prorogation which released Brock from his parliamentary duties on August 5 had been followed by eight days of the most strenuous military work, especially on the part of the little reinforcement which he was taking west to Amherstburg. The Upper Canada militiamen, drawn from the United Empire Loyalists and from the British-born, had responded with hearty goodwill, all the way from Glengarry to Niagara. But the population was so scattered and equipment so scarce that no attempt had been made to have whole battalions of 'Select Embodied Militia' ready for the beginning of the war, as in the more thickly peopled province of Lower Canada. The best that could be done was to embody the two flank companies--the Light and Grenadier companies--of the most urgently needed battalions.

But as these companies contained all the picked men who were readiest for immediate service, and as the Americans were very slow in mobilizing their own still more unready army, Brock found that, for the time being, York could be left and Detroit attacked with nothing more than his handful of regulars, backed by the flank-company militiamen and the Provincial Marine.

Leaving York the very day he closed the House there, Brock sailed over to Burlington Bay, marched across the neck of the Niagara peninsula, and embarked at Long Point with every man the boats could carry--three hundred, all told, forty regulars of the 41st and two hundred and sixty flank-company militiamen. Then, for the next five days, he fought his way, inch by inch, along the north sh.o.r.e of Lake Erie against a persistent westerly storm.

The news by the way was discouraging. Hull's invasion had unsettled the Indians as far east as the Niagara peninsula, which the local militia were consequently afraid to leave defenceless. But once Brock reached the scene of action, his insight showed him what bold skill could do to turn the tide of feeling all along the western frontier.

It was getting on for one o'clock in the morning of August 14 when Lieutenant Rolette challenged Brock's leading boat from aboard the Provincial Marine schooner _General Hunter_. As Brock stepped ash.o.r.e he ordered all commanding officers to meet him within an hour. He then read Hull's dispatches, which had been taken by Rolette with the captured schooner and by Tec.u.mseh at Brownstown. By two o'clock all the princ.i.p.al officers and Indian chiefs had a.s.sembled, not as a council of war, but simply to tell Brock everything they knew. Only Tec.u.mseh and Colonel Nichol, the quartermaster of the little army, thought that Detroit itself could be attacked with any prospect of success. Brock listened attentively; made up his mind; told his officers to get ready for immediate attack; asked Tec.u.mseh to a.s.semble all the Indians at noon; and dismissed the meeting at four. Brock and Tec.u.mseh read each other at a glance; and Tec.u.mseh, turning to the tribal chiefs, said simply, 'This is a man,' a commendation approved by them all with laconic, deep 'Ho-ho's!'

Tec.u.mseh was the last great leader of the Indian race and perhaps the finest embodiment of all its better qualities. Like Pontiac, fifty years before, but in a n.o.bler way, he tried to unite the Indians against the exterminating American advance. He was apparently on the eve of forming his Indian alliance when he returned home to find that his brother the Prophet had just been defeated at Tippecanoe. The defeat itself was no great thing. But it came precisely at a time when it could exert most influence on the unstable Indian character and be most effective in breaking up the alliance of the tribes.

Tec.u.mseh, divining this at once, lost no time in vain regrets, but joined the British next year at Amherstburg.

He came with only thirty followers. But stray warriors kept on arriving; and many of the bolder spirits joined him when war became imminent. At the time of Brock's arrival there were a thousand effective Indians under arms. Their arming was only authorized at the last minute; for Brock's dispatch to Prevost shows how strictly neutral the Canadian government had been throughout the recent troubles between the Indians and Americans. He mentions that the chiefs at Amherstburg had long been trying to obtain the muskets and ammunition 'which for years had been withheld, agreeably to the instructions received from Sir James Craig, and since repeated by Your Excellency.'

Precisely at noon Brock took his stand beneath a giant oak at Amherstburg surrounded by his officers. Before him sat Tec.u.mseh. Behind Tec.u.mseh sat the chiefs; and behind the chiefs a thousand Indians in their war-paint.

Brock then stepped forward to address them. Erect, alert, broad-shouldered, and magnificently tall; blue-eyed, fair-haired, with frank and handsome countenance; he looked every inch the champion of a great and righteous cause. He said the Long Knives had come to take away the land from both the Indians and the British whites, and that now he would not be content merely to repulse them, but would follow and beat them on their own side of the Detroit. After the pause that was usual on grave occasions, Tec.u.mseh rose and answered for all his followers. He stood there the ideal of an Indian chief: tall, stately, and commanding; yet tense, lithe, observant, and always ready for his spring. He the tiger, Brock the lion; and both unflinchingly at bay.

Next morning, August 15, an early start was made for Sandwich, some twelve miles north, where a five-gun battery was waiting to be unmasked against Detroit across the river. Arrived at Sandwich, Brock immediately sent across his aide-de-camp, Colonel Macdonell, with a letter summoning Hull to surrender. Hull wrote back to say he was prepared to stand his ground. Brock at once unmasked his battery and made ready to attack next day. With the men on detachment Hull still had a total of twenty-five hundred. Brock had only fifteen hundred, including the Provincial Marine. But Hull's men were losing what discipline they had and were becoming distrustful both of their leaders and of themselves; while Brock's men were gaining discipline, zeal, and inspiring confidence with every hour. Besides, the British were all effectives; while Hull had over five hundred absent from Detroit and as many more ineffective on the spot; which left him only fifteen hundred actual combatants. He also had a thousand non-combatants--men, women, and children--all cowering for shelter from the dangers of battle, and half dead with the far more terrifying apprehension of an Indian ma.s.sacre.

Brock's five-gun battery made excellent practice during the afternoon without suffering any material damage in return. One chance sh.e.l.l produced a most dismaying effect in Detroit by killing Hanks, the late commandant of Mackinaw, and three other officers with him. At twilight the firing ceased on both sides.

Immediately after dark Tec.u.mseh led six hundred eager followers down to their canoes a little way below Sandwich.

These Indians were told off by tribes, as battalions are by companies. There, in silent, dusky groups, moving soft-foot on their moccasins through the gloom, were Shawnees and Miamis from Tec.u.mseh's own lost home beside the Wabash, Foxes and Sacs from the Iowan valley, Ottawas and Wyandots, Chippewas and Potawatomis, some braves from the middle prairies between the Illinois and the Mississippi, and even Winnebagoes and Dakotahs from the far North-West. The flotilla of crowded canoes moved stealthily across the river, with no louder noise than the rippling current made. As secretly, the Indians crept ash.o.r.e, stole inland through the quiet night, and, circling north, cut off Hull's army from the woods. Little did Hull's anxious sentries think that some of the familiar cries of night-birds round the fort were signals being pa.s.sed along from scout to scout.

As the beautiful summer dawn began to break at four o'clock that fateful Sunday morning, the British force fell in, only seven hundred strong, and more than half militia. The thirty gunners who had served the Sandwich battery so well the day before also fell in, with five little field-pieces, in case Brock could force a battle in the open. Their places in the battery were ably filled by every man of the Provincial Marine whom Captain Hall could spare from the _Queen Charlotte_, the flagship of the tiny Canadian flotilla. Brock's men and his light artillery were soon afloat and making for Spring Wells, more than three miles below Detroit. Then, as the _Queen Charlotte_ ran up her sunrise flag, she and the Sandwich battery roared out a challenge to which the Americans replied with random aim. Brock leaped ash.o.r.e, formed front towards Hull, got into touch with Tec.u.mseh's Indians on his left, and saw that the British land and water batteries were protecting his right, as prearranged with Captain Hall.

He had intended to wait in this position, hoping that Hull would march out to the attack. But, even before his men had finished taking post, the whole problem was suddenly changed by the arrival of an Indian to say that McArthur's four hundred picked men, whom Hull had sent south to bring in the convoy, were returning to Detroit at once. There was now only a moment to decide whether to retreat across the river, form front against McArthur, or rush Detroit immediately. But, within that fleeting moment, Brock divined the true solution and decided to march straight on. With Tec.u.mseh riding a grey mustang by his side, he led the way in person. He wore his full-dress gold-and-scarlet uniform and rode his charger Alfred, the splendid grey which Governor Craig had given him the year before, with the recommendation that 'the whole continent of America could not furnish you with so safe and excellent a horse,' and for the good reason that 'I wish to secure for my old favourite a kind and careful master.'

The seven hundred redcoats made a gallant show, all the more imposing because the militia were wearing some spare uniforms borrowed from the regulars and because the confident appearance of the whole body led the discouraged Americans to think that these few could only be the vanguard of much greater numbers. So strong was this belief that Hull, in sudden panic, sent over to Sandwich to treat for terms, and was astounded to learn that Brock and Tec.u.mseh were the two men on the big grey horses straight in front of him. While Hull's envoys were crossing the river and returning, the Indians were beginning to raise their war-whoops in the woods and Brock was reconnoitring within a mile of the fort. This looked formidable enough, if properly defended, as the ditch was six feet deep and twelve feet wide, the parapet rose twenty feet, the palisades were of twenty-inch cedar, and thirty-three guns were pointed through the embrasures.

But Brock correctly estimated the human element inside, and was just on the point of advancing to the a.s.sault when Hull's white flag went up.

The terms were soon agreed upon. Hull's whole army, including all detachments, surrendered as prisoners of war, while the territory of Michigan pa.s.sed into the military possession of King George. Abundance of food and military stores fell into British hands, together with the _Adams_, a fine new brig that had just been completed. She was soon rechristened the _Detroit_. The Americans sullenly trooped out. The British elatedly marched in. The Stars and Stripes came down defeated.

The Union Jack went up victorious and was received with a royal salute from all the British ordnance, afloat and ash.o.r.e. The Indians came out of the woods, yelling with delight and firing their muskets in the air. But, grouped by tribes, they remained outside the fort and settlement, and not a single outrage was committed. Tec.u.mseh himself rode in with Brock; and the two great leaders stood out in front of the British line while the colours were being changed. Then Brock, in view of all his soldiers, presented his sash and pistols to Tec.u.mseh. Tec.u.mseh, in turn, gave his many-coloured Indian sash to Brock, who wore it till the day he died.

The effect of the British success at Detroit far exceeded that which had followed the capture of Mackinaw and the evacuation of Fort Dearborn. Those, however important to the West, were regarded as mainly Indian affairs. This was a white man's victory and a white man's defeat. Hull's proclamation thenceforth became a laughing-stock. The American invasion had proved a fiasco. The first American army to take the field had failed at every point. More significant still, the Americans were shown to be feeble in organization and egregiously mistaken in their expectations. Canada, on the other hand, had already found her champion and men quite fit to follow him.

Brock left Procter in charge of the West and hurried back to the Niagara frontier. Arrived at Fort Erie on August 23 he was dismayed to hear of a dangerously one-sided armistice that had been arranged with the enemy. This had been first proposed, on even terms, by Prevost, and then eagerly accepted by Dearborn, after being modified in favour of the Americans. In proposing an armistice Prevost had rightly interpreted the wishes of the Imperial government. It was wise to see whether further hostilities could not be averted altogether; for the obnoxious Orders-in-Council had been repealed. But Prevost was criminally weak in a.s.senting to the condition that all movements of men and material should continue on the American side, when he knew that corresponding movements were impossible on the British side for lack of transport.

Dearborn, the American commander-in-chief, was only a second-rate general. But he was more than a match for Prevost at making bargains.

Prevost was one of those men who succeed half-way up and fail at the top. Pure Swiss by blood, he had, like his father, spent his life in the British Army, and had risen to the rank of lieutenant-general. He had served with some distinction in the West Indies, and had been made a baronet for defending Dominica in 1805. In 1808 he became governor of Nova Scotia, and in 1811, at the age of forty-four, governor-general and commander-in-chief of Canada. He and his wife were popular both in the West Indies and in Canada; and he undoubtedly deserved well of the Empire for having conciliated the French Canadians, who had been irritated by his predecessor, the abrupt and masterful Craig. The very important Army Bill Act was greatly due to his diplomatic handling of the French Canadians, who found him so congenial that they stood by him to the end. His native tongue was French. He understood French ways and manners to perfection; and he consequently had far more than the usual sympathy with a people whose nature and circ.u.mstances made them particularly sensitive to real or fancied slights. All this is more to his credit than his enemies were willing to admit, either then or afterwards. But, in spite of all these good qualities, Prevost was not the man to safeguard British honour during the supreme ordeal of a war; and if he had lived in earlier times, when nicknames were more apt to become historic, he might well have gone down to posterity as Prevost the Pusillanimous.

Day after day Prevost's armistice kept the British helpless, while supplies and reinforcements for the Americans poured in at every advantageous point. Brock was held back from taking either Sackett's Harbour, which was meanwhile being strongly reinforced from Ogdensburg, or Fort Niagara, which was being reinforced from Oswego, Procter was held back from taking Fort Wayne, at the point of the salient angle south of Lake Michigan and west of Lake Erie--a quite irretrievable loss. For the moment the British had the command of all the Lakes. But their golden opportunity pa.s.sed, never to return. By land their chances were also quickly disappearing. On September 1, a week before the armistice ended, there were less than seven hundred Americans directly opposed to Brock, who commanded in person at Queenston and Fort George. On the day of the battle in October there were nearly ten times as many along the Niagara frontier.