ould favour the enterprise, given the alarm to
the enemy. This unlucky incident induced him to relinquish the
undertaking and return to Kingston.

Towards the end of July the American fleet again appeared with
augmented force upon the lake, and Commodore Chauncey having received a
company of artillery, with a considerable number of troops under Colonel
Scott, proceeded for the head of the lake, with a view of seizing and
destroying the stores at Burlington Heights, the principal depot of the
army on the Niagara frontier, then occupied by a small detachment under
Major Maule. The design of the enemy against this depot being suspected,
Lieutenant-Colonel Battersby, commanding the Glengarry Regiment, upon
being notified to that effect by Lieutenant-Colonel Harvey,
Deputy-Adjutant-General, moved forward from York, and, by a march of
extraordinary celerity, arrived with a reinforcement in time to save the
depot, which the enemy, on finding the British ready to receive them,
did not deem it prudent to attack.

Commodore Chauncey, on learning that York, by the advance of
Lieutenant-Colonel Battersby to Burlington Heights, was left destitute
of troops, seized the opportunity and bore away for that port, which he
entered on the 31st of July. Here the Americans landed without
opposition, and having taken possession of a small quantity of stores
found at that place, they set fire to the barracks and public
store-houses, and having re-embarked their troops, bore away to Niagara.

It is a coincidence worthy of notice, that on the same day in which the
American commander was employed in burning the barracks and stores at
York, Lieutenant-Colonel Murray was no less actively employed on the
same business at Plattsburg.

The British fleet sailed from Kingston on the last day of July, with
supplies for the army at the head of the lake, and on the 8th of August
looked into Niagara, where the enemy's fleet lay moored. The latter hove
up and bore down upon the British fleet, with which they manoeuvred
until the 10th, when a partial engagement ensued, in which two small
vessels (the _Julia_ and _Growler_) were cut off and captured by the
British.[213]

Commodore Chauncey, somewhat disheartened with the loss of these, and
two other small vessels--the _Scourge_ of eight, and the _Hamilton_ of
nine guns--upset by press of sail to escape, with the loss of all hands,
except sixteen men picked up by the English, bore up for Niagara, from
whe