13, whose sun beheld the
memorable Battle of the Thames, when, for the last time in the regions
of the North, the Lion and the Eagle met in fight.

The final retreat had begun at Fort Malden, a strongly fortified post on
the shores of Lake St. Clair, at the mouth of the Thames, where an
effectual stand might have been made against the farther advance of the
now victorious Americans. Such was the opinion of Tecumseh, and on
learning that his white ally had resolved to destroy and abandon the
fort to the intent of withdrawing still farther, even to the central
regions of Canada, he had boldly opposed the movement as unnecessary,
and being unheeded, had scornfully denounced it to his ally's very face
as unwarrior-like, dishonorable, contemptible. Had the civilized general
hearkened to the savage leader, the result of the war in that quarter,
if not more successful to the British cause, would certainly have been
far less dishonorable to the British name. During the retreat, the
heroic sachem had earnestly and repeatedly recommended a sudden and
determined face-about on their pursuers, and only the night before the
decisive battle he had urged a backward movement, that, under screen of
the darkness, they might surprise the sleeping enemy in his camp, and
overpower him before any combined resistance could be made. But all in
vain. His white ally was but a fat poltroon--"a big, fat, cowardly
dog," to use Tecumseh's own comparison, "that carries his tail curled
fiercely over his back till danger threatens, then drops it between his
legs and slinks away."

Throughout the war, this Proctor had displayed far more enterprise and
address as a plunderer than as a fighter, and now his sole end and aim
was the conveying of his precious booty and his precious body as
speedily as possible to some place of security before he should be
overtaken. But by means of this very booty with which in his greediness
he had overloaded himself, and the keeping of which he had far more at
heart than the maintaining of his own or his country's honor, he was
fated in the end to overwhelm himself with ruin and disgrace, since, by
the unwieldy clog thus laid upon his movements, he had doubled his risk
of being overtaken; and, with such a general, to be overtaken is to be
defeated; and to be defeated, ruined.

At last, after having pursued his heavy, blundering flight far up the
Thames to a place called Willow Marsh, near Moravian Town, and finding
that