g as great as in the United States, and for very similar
reasons. "It is impossible to enlist seamen in Quebec for the lakes,
as merchants are giving twenty-five to thirty guineas for the run to
England. Recruits desert as soon as they receive the bounty."[398]
After some correspondence, Captain Everard, of the sloop of war
"Wasp," then lying at Quebec, consented to leave his ship, go with a
large part of her crew to Champlain, man the captured sloops, and raid
the American stations on the lake. A body of troops being embarked,
the flotilla left Isle aux Noix July 29. On the 30th they came to
Plattsburg, destroyed there the public buildings, with the barracks at
Saranac, and brought off a quantity of stores. A detachment was sent
to Champlain Town, and a landing made also at Swanton in Vermont,
where similar devastation was inflicted on public property. Thence
they went up the lake to Burlington, where Macdonough, who was
alarmingly short of seamen since the capture of the "Eagle" and
"Growler," had to submit to seeing himself defied by vessels lately
his own. After seizing a few more small lake craft, Everard on August
3 hastened back, anxious to regain his own ship and resume the regular
duties, for abandoning which he had no authority save his own. The
step he had taken was hardly to be anticipated from a junior officer,
commanding a ship on sea service so remote from the scene of the
proposed operation; and the rapidity of his action took the Americans
quite by surprise, for there had been no previous indication of
activity. As soon as Macdonough heard of his arrival at Isle aux Noix,
he wrote for re-enforcements, but it was too late. His letter did not
reach New York till the British had come and gone.[399]

Upon Everard's return both he and Captain Pring, of the royal navy,
who had been with him during the foray and thenceforth remained
attached to the fortunes of the Champlain flotilla, recommended the
building of a large brig of war and two gunboats, in order to preserve
upon the lake the supremacy they had just asserted in act. With the
material at hand, they said, these vessels could all be afloat within
eight weeks after their keels were laid.[400] This suggestion appears
to have been acted upon; for in the following March it was reported
that there were building at St. John's a brig to carry twenty guns, a
schooner of eighteen, and twelve 2-gun galleys. However, the Americans
also were by this time building,