lives on that day.

That notwithstanding these disadvantages, the Court have, from the
evidence produced, arrived at the conviction that no force could have
commenced a march with the knowledge that they were advancing into a
country occupied by an enemy whose numbers (exaggerated as they were
afterwards known to be) were unknown to them, and whose position they
might at any moment he called upon to attack, in finer spirits, or
a more ready desire to show by obedience to command, that they were
deserving of the confidence which their employment on the occasion
showed was reposed in their courage, and in this respect no difference
was perceptible between the mere tyros and the more seasoned men of the
expedition.

This the Court find was the state of facts up to the time (which will be
referred to in a later part of this opinion) on the arrival of the force
under Lieut.-Col. Booker at Ridgeway, on the line of the Buffalo and
Lake Huron Railway, and its being formed in open column of companies.
The Court find that the order in which it advanced to form a junction
with the brigade under Col. Peacocke, of Her Majesty's 16th Regiment, at
Stevensville, was as follows:--

The 2nd Battalion (or Queen's Own Rifles) in front, the York Rifles
(attached to the Thirteenth Battalion, of which it formed the leading
company), the Thirteenth Battalion next, and last the Caledonia Rifle
Company, forming the rear guard, the advance guard of the force being
No. 5 Company of the Queen's Own, having forty Spencer rifles as part of
their armament; and the Court are of opinion that Lieut.-Col. Booker, in
advancing, used every precaution by extending companies to skirmish to
the right and left of the road by which he was moving his force, which
military rule and the nature of the country demanded; and that in the
forward movement from Ridgeway, the manner in which it was conducted by
Lieut.-Col. Booker and the officers of the force under his orders, was
regular, and in accordance with the well-understood rules by which such
duties are governed; and here the Court think it their duty to point to
the fact that in Lieut.-Col. Booker his force had a commanding officer
who, for the first time in his experience, found himself in command of
a larger body than one weak battalion on parade; and that this officer,
being without the assistance of any staff, and not even accompanied by a
mounted officer or orderly to transmit his instructions, was place