for the Americans to convey by water to Amherstburg any
artillery, of which, after much labour, they had at last mounted two
twenty-four-pounders. Lieutenant Rolette, commanding the armed brig
_Hunter_, had on the 3rd of July, at about ten o'clock in the forenoon,
by a bold attempt in his barge, with only six men, succeeded in
capturing the _Cayahaga_ packet, bound from Miami river to Detroit with
troops, and loaded with baggage, and the hospital stores of the American
army, the loss of which was now severely felt. Mackinac, in his rear,
had been taken since the commencement of the invasion, while the Indians
from that quarter were flocking to the British standard. Our naval force
being superior on the lake, Colonel Proctor pushed over to Brownstown, a
village nearly opposite to Amherstburg, twenty miles below Detroit,
with a small detachment of the 41st Regiment, under the command of
Captain Tallon, with a few Indians, who on the 5th of August surprised
and routed a party of 200 Americans under Major Vanhorne, on their way
from Detroit to River Raisin, to meet a detachment of volunteers from
Ohio, under Captain Brush, with a convoy of provisions for the army. In
this affair a quantity of booty, and General Hull's despatches to the
Secretary at War, fell into the hands of the victors, whereby the
deplorable state of the American army was disclosed." * *

"In the interim, the American general received a despatch from General
Hull, on the Niagara frontier, intimating that he could not expect
co-operation in that quarter, which would have created a diversion in
his favour. Such was the hopeless state of things when the American
general began to be sensible of his danger. His army hemmed in on every
side, cut off from its resources, and hourly wasting away with defeat,
death, sickness, and fatigue, unsupported by an expected insurrection of
Canadians in his favour, and unaided by any co-operating army, and,
above all, dismayed at the report of General Brock's resolution to
advance against him; his schemes of conquest vanquished, and in the
sinking state of his affairs, he saw no other alternative than to
retreat back to Detroit, under pretence of concentrating his main army,
and after re-opening his communications with the Rivers Raisin and
Miami, through which he received his whole supplies, to resume offensive
operations against Upper Canada. Accordingly, on the evening of the 7th
and the morning of the 8th of August, the