t which
ultimate defeat should have been inevitable. Naval power, sustained
upon the Great Lakes, controlled the great line of communication
between the East and West, and also conferred upon the party
possessing it the strategic advantage of interior lines; that is, of
shorter distances, both in length and time, to move from point to
point of the lake shores, close to which lay the scenes of
operations. It followed that Detroit and Michilimackinac, being at the
beginning in the possession of the United States, should have been
fortified, garrisoned, provisioned, in readiness for siege, and placed
in close communication with home, as soon as war was seen to be
imminent, which it was in December, 1811, at latest. Having in that
quarter everything to lose, and comparatively little to gain, the
country was thrown on the defensive. On the east the possession of
Montreal or Kingston would cut off all Canada above from support by
the sea, which would be equivalent to insuring its fall. "I shall
continue to exert myself to the utmost to overcome every difficulty,"
wrote Brock, who gave such emphatic proof of energetic and sagacious
exertion in his subsequent course. "Should, however, the communication
between Montreal and Kingston be cut off, the fate of the troops in
this part of the province will be decided."[413] "The Montreal
frontier," said the officer selected by the Duke of Wellington to
report on the defences of Canada, "is the most important, and at
present [1826] confessedly most vulnerable and accessible part of
Canada."[414] There, then, was the direction for offensive operations
by the United States; preferably against Montreal, for, if successful,
a much larger region would be isolated and reduced. Montreal gone,
Kingston could receive no help from without; and, even if capable of
temporary resistance, its surrender would be but a question of time.
Coincidently with this military advance, naval development for the
control of the lakes should have proceeded, as a discreet precaution;
although, after the fall of Kingston and Montreal, there could have
been little use of an inland navy, for the British local resources
would then have been inadequate to maintain an opposing force.

Considered apart from the question of military readiness, in which
the United States was so lamentably deficient, the natural advantages
in her possession for the invasion of Canada were very great. The
Hudson River, Lake George, and Lake