he inn at Fort Schlosser.
In the inn there was a guard of armed men to protect her--part of the
pirate force, or acting in their support. On her deck there was an armed
party and a sentinel, who demanded the countersign.

Thus identified as she was with the force which in defiance of the law
of nations and every principle of natural justice had invaded Upper
Canada and made war upon its unoffending inhabitants, she was boarded,
and after a resistance in which some desperate wounds were inflicted
upon the assailants she was carried. If any peaceable citizens of the
United States perished in the conflict, it was and is unknown to the
captors, and it was and is equally unknown to them whether any such were
there. Before this vessel was thus taken not a gun had been fired by the
force under the orders of Colonel McNab, even upon this gang of pirates,
much less upon any peaceable citizen of the United States. It must
therefore have been a consciousness of the guilty service she was
engaged in that led those who were employing her to think an armed guard
necessary for her defense. Peaceable citizens of the United States were
not likely to be found in a vessel so employed at such a place and in
such a juncture, and if they were there their presence, especially
unknown as it was to the captors, could not prevent, in law or reason,
this necessary act of self-defense.

Fifteen days had elapsed since the invasion of Upper Canada by a
force enlisted, armed, and equipped openly in the State of New York.
The country where this outrage upon the law of nations was committed
is populous. Buffalo also contains 15,000 inhabitants. The public
authorities, it is true, gave no countenance to those flagrant acts, but
it did not prevent them or in the slightest degree obstruct them further
than by issuing proclamations, which were disregarded.

Perhaps they could not, but in either case the insult and injury to the
inhabitants of Canada were the same and their right to defend themselves
equally unquestionable.

No wanton injury was committed by the party who gallantly effected this
service. They loosed the vessel from the wharf, and finding they could
not tow her against the rapid current of the Niagara, they abandoned the
effort to secure her, set her on fire, and let her drift down the
stream.

The prisoners taken were a man who, it will be seen by the documents
accompanying this dispatch, avowed himself to be a subject of Her
Majesty,