Sir Isaac Brock
lost his life. Colonel Van R---- was severely wounded on that day.]

CHAPTER XIV.

The Americans, burning to wipe away the stain of their discomfiture at
Detroit, and apparently determined to penetrate into Upper Canada at any
risk, concentrated with those views, along the Niagara frontier, an army
consisting, according to their own official returns, of 5,206 men, under
Major-General Van Rensselaer, of the New York militia, exclusive of 300
field and light artillery, 800 of the 6th, 13th, and 23d regiments, at
Fort Niagara; making a total of 6,300 men. Of this powerful force, 1,650
regulars, under the command of Brigadier Smyth, were at Black Rock; 386
militia at the last named place and Buffalo; and 900 regulars and 2,270
militia at Lewistown, distant from Black Rock 28 miles. Thus the enemy
had, along their frontier of 36 miles, 3,650 regulars and 2,650
militia.[95] To oppose this force Major-General Brock, whose head
quarters were at Fort George, had under his immediate orders part of the
41st and 49th regiments, a few companies of militia, amounting to nearly
half these regulars, and from 200 to 300 Indians--in all about 1,500
men--but so dispersed in different posts at and between Fort Erie and
Fort George, (34 miles apart,) that only a small number was quickly
available at any one point. With unwearied diligence the British
commander watched the motions of the enemy; but under these
circumstances it was impossible to prevent the landing of the hostile
troops, especially when their preparations were favored by the obscurity
of the night.

On the 9th of October, the brig Detroit, of 200 tons and 6 guns, (lately
the U.S. brig Adams,) and the North-West Company's brig Caledonia, of
about 100 tons, having arrived the preceding day from Detroit, were
boarded and carried opposite Fort Erie, before the dawn of day, by
Lieutenant Elliott, of the American navy, with 100 seamen and soldiers
in two large boats. This officer was at this time at Black Rock,
superintending the equipment of some schooners, lately purchased for the
service of Lake Erie. But for the _defensive_ measures to which
Major-General Brock was restricted, he would probably have destroyed
these very schooners, for whose equipment, as vessels of war, Lieutenant
Elliott and 50 seamen had been sent from New York. The two British brigs
contained 40 prisoners, some cannon and small arms, captured at Detroit,
exclusive of a valuable qua