to the garrison at Mackinac; there being at the time but one
other vessel on the lakes competent to the maintenance of their
communications.

This remaining schooner, called the "Nancy," was known to be in
Nottawasaga Bay, at the south end of Georgian Bay, near the position
selected by the British as a depot for stores coming from York by way
of Lake Simcoe. After much dangerous search in uncharted waters,
Sinclair found her lying two miles up a river of the same name as the
bay, where she was watching a chance to slip through to Mackinac. Her
lading had been completed July 31, and the next day she had already
started, when a messenger brought word that approach to the island was
blocked by the American expedition. The winding of the river placed
her present anchorage within gunshot of the lake; but as she could
not be seen through the brush, Sinclair borrowed from the army a
howitzer, with which, mounted in the open beyond, he succeeded in
firing both the "Nancy" and the blockhouse defending the position. The
British were thus deprived of their last resource for transportation
in bulk upon the lake. What this meant to Mackinac may be inferred
from the fact that flour there was sixty dollars the barrel, even
before Sinclair's coming.

Having inflicted this small, yet decisive, embarrassment on the enemy,
Sinclair on August 16 started back with the "Niagara" and "Hunter" for
Erie, whither he had already despatched the "Lawrence"--Perry's old
flagship--and the "Caledonia." He left in Nottawasaga Bay the
schooners "Scorpion" and "Tigress," "to maintain a rigid blockade
until driven from the lake by the inclemency of the weather," in order
"to cut the line of communications from Michilimackinac to York."
Lieutenant Daniel Turner of the "Scorpion," who had commanded the
"Caledonia" in Perry's action, was the senior officer of this
detachment.

After Sinclair's departure the gales became frequent and violent.
Finding no good anchorage in Nottawasaga Bay, Turner thought he could
better fulfil the purpose of his instructions by taking the schooners
to St. Joseph's, and cruising thence to French River, which enters
Georgian Bay at its northern end. On the night of September 3, the
"Scorpion" being then absent at the river, the late commander of the
"Nancy," Lieutenant Miller Worsley, got together a boat's crew of
eighteen seamen, and obtained the co-operation of a detachment of
seventy soldiers. With these, followed by a num