rronades. On Lake Erie the British had a squadron of six vessels,
carrying in all forty-six guns.

Hostilities opened early on Lake Ontario. For some time before the
formal declaration of war, a desultory warfare had been waged by the
Americans and Canadians about Niagara. Canadian schooners had been
seized on account of alleged violations of the revenue and embargo
regulations of the United States. The resentment of the sufferers was
aroused, and they only awaited a suitable opportunity to retaliate.
The opportunity soon came, in the form of the declaration of war; and
a body of Canadian volunteers attacked eight American schooners, near
the Thousand Isles, and burned two of them.

With the opening of the war, the United States authorities had fixed
upon Sackett's Harbor as the naval station for Lake Ontario. In the
harbor, on the 19th of July, 1812, lay the "Oneida," which had lately
come into port after a short cruise in search of British schooners. At
early dawn of the day mentioned, the lookout reported five ships in
the offing, and a few minutes later hailed the deck, to report them to
be British ships-of-war. The alarm quickly spread over the little
town. Puny though the British fleet would have appeared upon the
ocean, it was of ample power to take the "Oneida" and destroy the
village. Before the villagers fairly understood their peril, a small
boat came scudding into the harbor before the wind. It bore a message
from the British commander, demanding that the "Oneida" and the "Lord
Nelson" (a captured Canadian vessel) be surrendered. Should the
squadron be resisted, he warned the inhabitants that their town should
be burned to the ground.

Commander Woolsey, who commanded the "Oneida," was a United States
officer of the regular service, and a man of courage and fertility of
resource. Unable to take his vessel out into the lake, he moored her
at the entrance of the harbor in such a way that her broadside of nine
guns might be brought to bear on the enemy. All hands then set to work
getting the other broadside battery ashore; and, by the aid of the
villagers, these guns were mounted on a hastily thrown up redoubt on
the shore. At the foot of the main street of the village was planted a
queerly assorted battery. The great gun, on which the hopes of the
Americans centred, was an iron thirty-two-pounder, which had lain for
years deeply embedded in the muddy ooze of the lake-shore, gaining
thereby the derisive name