nd Hull's own defence, go to show a mind overpowered by
the agony of this imagination. After receiving word of the desertion
of two companies, he said, "I now became impatient to put the place
under the protection of the British; I knew that there were thousands
of savages around us." These thousands were not at hand. Not till
after September 1 did as many as a hundred arrive from the north--from
Mackinac.[454] In short, unless what Cass styled the philanthropic
reason can be accepted,--and in the opinion of the present writer it
cannot,--Hull wrote the condemnation of his action in his own defence.
"I shall now state what force the enemy brought, or might bring,
against me. I say, gentlemen, _might bring_, because it was that
consideration which induced the surrender, and not the force which was
actually landed on the American shore on the morning of the 16th. It
is possible I might have met and repelled that force; and if I had no
further to look than the event of a contest at that time, I should
have trusted to the issue of a battle.... The force brought against me
I am very confident was not less than one thousand whites, and as many
savage warriors."[455]

The reproach of this mortifying incident cannot be lifted from off
Hull's memory; but for this very reason, in weighing the
circumstances, it is far less than justice to forget his years,
verging on old age, his long dissociation from military life, his
personal courage frequently shown during the War of Independence, nor
the fact that, though a soldier on occasion, he probably never had the
opportunity to form correct soldierly standards. To the credit account
should also be carried the timely and really capable presentation of
the conditions of the field of operations already quoted, submitted by
him to the Government, which should not have needed such
demonstration. The mortification of the country fastened on his name;
but had the measures urged by him been taken, had his expedition
received due support by energetic operations elsewhere, events need
not have reached the crisis to which he proved unequal. The true
authors of the national disaster and its accompanying humiliation are
to be sought in the national administrations and legislatures of the
preceding ten or twelve years, upon whom rests the responsibility for
the miserably unprepared condition in which the country was plunged
into war. Madison, too tardily repentant, wrote, "The command of the
Lakes