us described:

An army of American citizens, joined to a very few traitors from Upper
Canada, and under the command of a subject of the United States, has
been raised and equipped in the State of New York against the laws
of the United States and the treaties now subsisting, and are using
artillery plundered from the arsenals of the State of New York in
carrying on this piratical warfare against a friendly country.

The officers and Government of the United States and of the State of New
York have attempted to arrest these proceedings and to control their
citizens, but they have failed. Although this piratical assemblage are
thus defying the civil authorities of both countries, Upper Canada alone
is the object of their hostilities. The Government of the United States
has failed to enforce its authority by any means, civil or military, and
the single question (if it be a question) is whether Upper Canada was
bound to refrain from necessary acts of self-defense against a people
whom their own Government either could not or would not control.

In perusing the message of His Excellency Governor Marcy to the
legislature of the State of New York your excellency will probably feel
some degree of surprise that after three weeks' continued hostility
carried on by the citizens of New York against the people of Upper
Canada his excellency seems to have considered himself not called upon
to make this aggression the subject of remark for any other purpose
than to complain of a solitary act of self-defense on the part of Her
Majesty's Province of Upper Canada, to which such unprovoked hostilities
have unavoidably led.

I have the honor to be, sir, your excellency's most obedient, humble
servant.

F.B. HEAD.

[Footnote 27: Omitted.]

_Mr. Forsyth to Mr. Fox_.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

_Washington, February 13, 1838_.

HENRY S. FOX, Esq., etc.

SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the
6th instant, communicating a copy of a letter from Sir Francis Head,
lieutenant-governor of the Province of Upper Canada, respecting the
capture and destruction of the steamboat _Caroline_ by a Canadian force
on the American side of the Niagara River within the jurisdiction of the
State of New York, together with the reports and depositions thereto
annexed.

The statement of the facts which these papers present is at variance
with the information communicated to this Government respecting that
transaction; but