can coast has suffered more
from the blockade of this war than it ever did from the wars between
France and England. The year 1814 opens with Napoleon defeated and
England pouring aid across the Atlantic into Canada. Wilkinson's big
army hovers inactive round Lake Champlain, and Prevost is afraid to
weaken Montreal by forwarding aid to Drummond at Niagara. The British
fleet blockades Sackett's Harbor, and the American fleet blockades
Kingston. The Canadians raid Oswego on Lake Ontario for provisions.
The Americans raid Port Dover on Lake Erie, leaving the country a
blackened waste and Tom Talbot's Castle Malahide of logs a smoking
ruin, with the determined aim of cutting off all supplies in Ontario.
Drummond sends his troops scouring the country inland from Niagara for
provisions. Military law is established for the seizure of cattle and
grain, but for the latter as high a price is paid as $2.50 a bushel,
and many a pioneer farmer back from York (Toronto) and Burlington
(Hamilton) dates the foundation of his fortune from the famine prices
paid for bread during the War of 1812.

[Illustration: SIR GORDON DRUMMOND]

Of course the United States did not purpose leaving the frontier of
Niagara because Drummond had burnt the forts. By {371} May, Major
General Brown had taken command of the United States troops at Buffalo.
The next two months pass, drilling and training, and bringing forward
provisions. July 3, at day dawn, during fog thick as wool on the lake,
five thousand American troops cross to the Canadian side. Fort Erie's
English garrison capitulates on the spot, and the English retreat down
Niagara River towards Chippewa by the Falls. At Chippewa, at
Queenston, at Fort George, in all to guard the Canadian frontier are
only some twenty-eight hundred men. Three fourths of these are kept
doing garrison duty, leaving only seven hundred men free afield. Just
beside Chippewa, a creek some twenty feet wide comes into Niagara
River. The Canadians have destroyed the bridge as they retreat, but
the Americans pursue, and at midnight of the 4th the two armies are
facing each other across the brook, ominous dreadful silence through
the darkness but for the sentry's arms or the lumbering advance of
artillery wagons dragged cautiously near the Canadians. The bridge is
repaired under peppering shot from the British. By four on the
afternoon of the 5th, the Americans have crossed the stream. Their
artillery is in plac