ommanders of posts
within his district to abstain from offensive operations till further
orders. This suspension of arms included the Niagara line, from action
upon which Hull had expected to receive support. In his defence Hull
claimed that this arrangement, in which his army was not included, had
freed a number of troops to proceed against him; but the comparison of
dates shows that every man present at Detroit in the British force had
gone forward before the agreement could be known. The letter engaging
to remain on the defensive only was signed by Dearborn at Greenbush,
near Albany, August 8. The same day Brock was three hundred and fifty
miles to the westward, embarking at Long Point for Malden; and among
his papers occurs the statement that the strong American force on the
Niagara frontier compelled him to take to Detroit only one half of the
militia that volunteered.[458] His military judgment and vigor,
unaided, had enabled him to abandon one line, and that the most
important, concentrate all available men at another point, effect
there a decisive success, and return betimes to his natural centre of
operations. He owed nothing to outside military diplomacy. On the
contrary, he deeply deplored the measure which now tied his hands at a
moment when the Americans, though restrained from fighting, were not
prevented from bringing up re-enforcements to the positions
confronting him.

Dearborn's action was not approved by the Administration, and the
armistice was ended September 4, by notification. Meantime, to
strengthen the British Niagara frontier, all the men and ordnance that
could now be spared from Amherstburg had been brought back by Brock to
Fort Erie, which was on the lake of that name, at the upper end of the
Niagara River. Although still far from secure, owing to the much
greater local material resources of the United States, and the
preoccupation of Great Britain with the Peninsular War, which
prevented her succoring Canada, Brock's general position was immensely
improved since the beginning of hostilities. His successes in the
West, besides rallying the Indians by thousands to his support, had
for the time so assured that frontier as to enable him to concentrate
his efforts on the East; while the existing British naval superiority
on both lakes, Erie and Ontario, covered his flanks, and facilitated
transportation--communications--from Kingston to Niagara, and thence
to Malden, Detroit, Mackinac, and the