ern, twenty rank and file of
the marines, and ten militiamen, crossed the ice on the 6th of
February, during the night, from Cornwall to Madrid, on Grass River,
with horses and sleighs innumerable. The merchandise, or a great part
of it, was secured, packed in the sleighs, and carried off. Indeed the
inhabitants of Madrid made no opposition to Captain Kerr, but on the
contrary, looking upon the expedition as rather smart, were
considerably tickled, and positively helped the British to load their
sleighs and be gone. Jonathan, fully alive to the ludicrous, chuckled
as he thought upon the astonished countenances of the United States'
officers, who were charged with the sale of the goods, when they should
have ascertained their unlooked for disappearance. The inhabitants
were, of course, not molested, and indeed living but a few hundred
yards from the British shore, were only very moderate Americans.

There was also, during the winter, a skirmish at Longwood, in which the
British, who were the assailants, retired with a loss of two officers
and twelve men killed.

The campaign opened with the opening of the navigation, in May. Sir
James Yeo, with the co-operation of that talented, skilful, and
excellent officer, General Drummond, planned an attack upon Oswego,
with the view of destroying the naval stores, sent by way of that town
for the equipment of the American fleet in Sackett's Harbour. The
British fleet having been strengthened by two additional ships, the
_Prince Regent_ and the _Princess Charlotte_, General Drummond sent on
board of it six companies of DeWatteville's regiment, the light
companies of the Glengary militia, and the second battalion of the
Royal Marines, with a detachment of Royal Artillery, and two field
pieces, a detachment of a rocket company, and some sappers and miners.
This expedition left Kingston on the 4th of May, and arrived off Oswego
about noon on the day following. It was then however, blowing a gale of
wind, from the northwest, and it was considered expedient to keep off
and on the port, until the weather calmed. It was the morning of the
6th, before a landing could be effected, when about one hundred and
forty men, under Colonel Fischer, and two hundred seamen, under Captain
Mulcaster, Royal Navy, were sent ashore, in the face of a heavy fire of
grape and round shot from the enemies' batteries, and of musketry from
a detachment of the American army, posted on the brow of a hill and
part