pon which the militia also refused, saying they
were afraid to leave their homes unguarded, till it was certain which
side the savages would take. On July 25 Brock wrote that his plans
were thus ruined; but July 29 it became known that Mackinac had
fallen, and on that day the militia about York [Toronto], where he
then was, volunteered for service in any part of the province. August
8 he embarked with three hundred of them, and a few regulars, at Long
Point, on the north shore of Lake Erie; whence he coasted to Malden,
arriving on the 13th.

Meanwhile batteries had been erected opposite Detroit, which opened on
the evening of August 15, the fort replying; but slight harm was done
on either side. Next day Brock crossed the greater part of his force,
landing three miles below Detroit. His little column of assault
consisted of 330 regulars, 400 militia, and 600 Indians, the latter in
the woods covering the left flank.[450] The effective Americans
present were by that morning's report 1,060;[451] while their field
artillery, additional to that mounted in the works, was much superior
to that of the enemy, was advantageously posted, and loaded with
grape. Moreover, they had the fort, on which to retire.

Brock's movements were audacious. Some said nothing could be more
desperate; "but I answer, that the state of Upper Canada admitted of
nothing but desperate remedies."[452] The British general had served
under Nelson at Copenhagen, and quoted him here. He knew also, through
the captured correspondence, that his opponent was a prey to a
desperation very different in temper from his own, and had lost the
confidence of his men. He had hoped, by the threatening position
assumed between the town and its home base, to force Hull to come out
and attack; but learning now that the garrison was weakened by a
detachment of three hundred and fifty, despatched two days before
under Colonel McArthur to open intercourse with the Maumee by a
circuitous road, avoiding the lake shore, he decided to assault at
once. When the British column had approached within a mile, Hull
withdrew within the works all his force, including the artillery, and
immediately afterward capitulated. The detachment under McArthur, with
another from the state of Ohio on its way to join the army, were
embraced in the terms; Brock estimating the whole number surrendered
at not less than twenty-five hundred. A more important capture, under
the conditions, was an America