n brig, the "Adams," not yet armed, but
capable of use as a ship of war, for which purpose she had already
been transferred from the War Department to the Navy.

In his defence before the Court Martial, which in March, 1814, tried
him for his conduct of the campaign, Hull addressed himself to three
particulars, which he considered to be the principal features in the
voluminous charges and specifications drawn against him. These were,
"the delay at Sandwich, the retreat from Canada, and the surrender at
Detroit."[453] Concerning these, as a matter of military criticism, it
may be said with much certainty that if conditions imposed the delay
at Sandwich, they condemned the advance to it, and would have
warranted an earlier retreat. The capitulation he justified on the
ground that resistance could not change the result, though it might
protract the issue. Because ultimate surrender could not be averted,
he characterized life lost in postponing it as blood shed uselessly.
The conclusion does not follow from the premise; nor could any
military code accept the maxim that a position is to be yielded as
soon as it appears that it cannot be held indefinitely. Delay, so long
as sustained, not only keeps open the chapter of accidents for the
particular post, but supports related operations throughout the
remainder of the field of war. Tenacious endurance, if it effected no
more, would at least have held Brock away from Niagara, whither he
hastened within a week after the capitulation, taking with him a force
which now could be well spared from the westward. No one military
charge can be considered as disconnected; therefore no commander has a
right to abandon defence while it is possible to maintain it, unless
he also knows that it cannot affect results elsewhere; and this
practically can never be certain. The burden of anxieties, of dangers
and difficulties, actual and possible, weighing upon Brock, were full
as great as those upon Hull, for on his shoulders rested both Niagara
and Malden. His own resolution and promptitude triumphed because of
the combined inefficiency of Hull and Dearborn. He scarcely could have
avoided disaster at one end or the other of the line, had either
opponent been thoroughly competent.

There was yet another reason which weighed forcibly with Hull, and
probably put all purely military considerations out of court. This
was the dread of Indian outrage and massacre. The general trend of the
testimony, a