e adjacent town of Newark
(Niagara), as they would be required for winter quarters for the "Army
of the Centre."

It was a difficult if not doubtful task for General Sheaffe and the
regular and militia officers under his command to provide for the
defence of the country against such formidable odds; for up to the time
at which the American general had violated the terms of the armistice
not a single British soldier had arrived to reinforce the little
Canadian army; and "after the conflict at Queenston, the militia, which
constituted the majority of the British force, had been permitted to
return home to secure the remainder of their harvest." (Thompson.)

"However, on the first alarm being given of the hostile movements of the
American army, those already harassed but loyal Canadian militiamen
promptly returned to their posts, fully determined to dispute every inch
of ground while a man was left to defend it."--(_Ib_). Nor were these
volunteer Loyalists intimidated by General Smyth's extended columns of
cavalry and infantry with which he lined the American shore, his
marching and countermarching of countless battalions, and all the pomp
of war and parade of martial bombast with which the fertile mind of
General Smyth hoped to terrify the apparently defenceless Canadians; to
which he added a flaming proclamation, not excelled in pomposity and
brag by that of General Hull issued to Canadians three months before. We
give this proclamation, as we have done that of General Hull, in a
note.[200]

This proclamation, ridiculous as it is, and appealing to the lowest
mercenary as well as better motives of democratic Americans, produced a
considerable effect in Pennsylvania, and caused an accession of some
2,000 volunteers to General Smyth's already large forces; but when the
crisis of action arrived, this grandiloquent General Smyth was not to be
found on the field of action; and of the twenty boats which were
provided to convey across the river the first instalment of invaders of
Canada, fourteen boats were sunk or driven back, and only six boats
reached the Canadian shore and gained a temporary hold, but some of them
were driven back with loss before the next morning, and the remainder
were taken prisoners. The next day General Smyth promised to do very
great things; but we will narrate these doings and the results in the
words of the American writer Lossing, in his _Field Book of the War of_
1812. Lossing says:

"November