rung
into the position of jubilant victor, and if Brock had lived, she would
probably have followed up her victories by aggressive invasion of the
enemy's territory; but all effort was literally paralyzed by the
timidity and vacillation of the governor general, Sir George Prevost.
Prevost's one idea seems to have been that as soon as the obnoxious
embargo laws were revoked by England, the war would stop. When the
embargo was revoked and the armistice of midsummer simply terminated in
a resumption of war, this idea seems to have been succeeded by the
single aim to hold off conclusions with the United States till England
could beat Napoleon and come to the rescue. All winter long scouts and
bold spirits among the volunteers craved the chance to raid the
anchored fleets of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, but Prevost not only
forbade the invasion of the enemy's territory, but before the year was
out actually advocated the abandonment of Ontario. If his advice had
been followed, it is no idle supposition to infer that the fate of
Ontario would have been the same as the destiny of the Ohio and
Michigan.

One night in February the sentry at the village of Brockville, named
after the dead hero, was surprised by two hundred American raiders
dashing up from the frozen river bed. Before bugles could sound to
arms, jails had been opened, stores looted, houses {350} plundered, and
the raiders were off and well away with fifty-two prisoners and a dozen
sleigh loads of provisions. Gathering some five hundred men together
from the Kingston region, M'Donnell and Jenkins of the Glengarrys
prepared to be revenged. Cannon were hauled out on the river from the
little village of Prescott to cross the ice to Ogdensburg. The river
here is almost two miles wide, and as it was the 23d of February, the
ice had become rotten from the sun glare of the coming spring. As the
cannon were drawn to mid-river, though it was seven in the morning, the
ice began to heave and crack with dire warning. To hesitate was death;
to go back as dangerous as to go forward. With a whoop the men broke
from quick march to a run, unsheathing musket and fixing bayonet blades
as they dashed ahead to be met with a withering cross fire as they came
within range of the American batteries. In places, the suck of the
water told where the ice had given behind. Then bullets were peppering
the river bed in a rain of fire, Jenkins and M'Donnell to the fore,
waving their