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THREE:The western extremity of Lake Erie was the scene of a most unequal contest at the commencement of 1813. Colonel Procter lay near Frenchtown, about twenty miles from Detroit, with about five hundred troops, partly regulars, partly militia and sailors. In addition, he was supported by about the same number of Red Indians. The Americans, under General Winchester��an old officer of the War of Independence��amounted to one thousand two hundred men. With these Winchester had scoured the Michigan country, and, at the end of January, advanced to attack Procter. Sir George Prevost had commanded Procter to act on the defensive; but scorning this cowardly advice, he suddenly advanced by night, as the Americans had quartered themselves in Frenchtown, surprised, and captured or destroyed the whole of them, except about thirty who escaped into the woods. Winchester himself was seized by Round Head, the Indian chief, who arrayed himself in his uniform, and then delivered him up to Colonel Procter. From this point Colonel Procter hastened to cross the lake in a flotilla, and attack General Harrison at Fort Meigs. He knew that Harrison was expecting strong reinforcements, and he was anxious to dislodge him before they arrived. Procter had with him one thousand men, half regulars, half militia, and one thousand two hundred Indians; but Harrison's force was much stronger, and defended by a well-entrenched camp. Procter erected batteries, and fired across the river Miami, endeavouring to destroy the American block-houses with red-hot shot, but they were of wood too green to take fire. On the 5th of May Harrison's expected reinforcements came down the river in boats, one thousand three hundred strong. Harrison now commenced acting on the offensive, to aid the disembarkation of the troops; but he was defeated by Procter, who routed the whole of the new forces, under General Clay, took five hundred and fifty prisoners, and killed as many more. But his success had its disadvantage. His Indian allies, loaded with booty, returned to the Detroit frontier, and the Canadian militia to their farms. Procter was[107] compelled, therefore, to leave Harrison in his camp, and return also to Detroit, for Sir George Prevost had provided him with no new militia, or other force, to supply the place of those gone. Still worse, Prevost could not even be prevailed on to send sailors to man the few British vessels on Lake Erie, where the American flotilla was now far superior to the British one. In vain did Captain Barclay, who commanded the little squadron, urge Prevost to send him sailors, or the few vessels must be captured or destroyed; in vain did Colonel Procter urge, too, the necessity of this measure. Sir George, who took care to keep out of harm's way himself, sent taunting messages to Captain Barclay, telling him that the quality of his men made up for the inferiority of numbers, and that he ought to fight. Barclay, who was as brave a man as ever commanded a vessel, and had lost an arm in the service, but who did not pretend to do impossibilities, was now, however, stung to give battle. He had three hundred and fifty-six men��few of whom were experienced seamen��and forty-six guns of very inferior description. The American commodore, Percy, had five hundred and eighty men, and fifty-four guns, with picked crews on all his vessels. Barclay fought till he had taken Percy's ship, and lost his remaining arm. In the end the British vessels were compelled to strike, but not till they had lost, in killed and wounded, one hundred and thirty-five men, and had killed and wounded one hundred and twenty-three of the Americans. This success enormously elated the Americans, and they now confidently calculated on defeating Procter, and annexing Upper Canada. Harrison made haste to interpose nearly six thousand men between Procter��who had now only five hundred, and as many Indians��and the country on which he was endeavouring to retreat. The forces of Procter were compelled to give ground, and Harrison inflicted a severe revenge on the Indians, for their slaughter of the Americans at Meigs. The chief, Tecumseh, being killed, they flayed him, and cut up his skin into razor-straps, as presents to the chief men of the Congress, and Mr. Clay is said to have boasted the possession of one of these. The American armies now put themselves on the track for Kingston and Montreal. Harrison marched along the shore of Lake Erie with upwards of five thousand men, and General Wilkinson, with ten thousand more, crossed Lake Ontario, towards Kingston, to join him. General Hampton, at the same time also, was marching on Montreal. Sir George Prevost was in the utmost alarm, and sent orders to General Vincent to fall down to Kingston, leaving exposed all Upper Canada. But as General Rottenburg was moving on Kingston, Vincent, who was now joined by the remainder of Procter's force, determined to disobey these orders; and several general officers confirmed him in this resolution, and offered to share the responsibility. This was the salvation of Upper Canada. The three American generals were attacked and routed. The Canadian militia did good service, and the Americans were completely driven out of both Upper and Lower Canada before winter. In their retreat they grew brutal, and committed savage cruelties on the unarmed population. They burnt down the town of Newark, near Fort George, driving about four hundred women and children out of it into the snow. They destroyed various villages in their route. This ferocity excited the British and Canadians to retaliation. Colonel Murray crossed the water, and pursued them in their own territories. He attacked and carried Fort Niagara, killed or made prisoners of the whole garrison, and captured the arms and stores. General Hull came up, with two thousand men, to check the march of Murray, who with one thousand regulars and militia, and between three and four hundred Indians, on the 30th of December, repulsed him with great slaughter, pursued him, and��to avenge the poor Canadians��set fire to Buffalo and the village of Black Rock. The whole of that frontier was thus left defenceless.Meantime Cambac��r��s and Fouch�� had dispatched couriers to Louis Buonaparte, in Holland, to march down troops to the defence of Antwerp; and he had not only done that, but had opened the sluices on the borders of the Scheldt, and laid the country under water, to prevent the march of the British. He also had ordered the erection of numerous batteries, and Bernadotte arrived in about a fortnight, by orders of Napoleon, to resist the advance of the British. From forty to fifty thousand troops were assembled in and around Antwerp, and hosts of Dutch and Belgian militia swarmed over the country. This was certain to be the case if any time was allowed, and it was now agreed, in a council of war, that it was not possible to proceed further. In fact, they were no longer allowed to remain where they were. Their provisions were rapidly being exhausted, sickness was spreading amongst the troops, and the fire of the enemy's batteries from both sides of the river compelled them to fall down the stream. That was the end of the campaign; the rest was a foolish and murderous delay in the island of Walcheren, without any conceivable purpose. There was no use in retaining the island, for we could at any time blockade the mouths of the Scheldt, and our men on board the ships were comparatively healthy; but in this swamp of death the soldiers continued dying like rotten sheep. The island of Walcheren, to which they were now confined, is a spongy swamp, below the level of the sea at high water. The wet oozes through the banks, and stagnates in the dykes, and is only capable of being pumped out by windmills. The ground is covered often with mud and slime, and the inhabitants are sickly and sallow in aspect, and of loose and flaccid muscles. Yet, in this den of fever and death, the commanders seemed determined to retain the army till it perished entirely. The Earl of Chatham himself returned to London on the 14th of September, with as many of the sick as he could take. At this time he left eleven thousand, out of the seventeen thousand quartered on the island of Walcheren, on the sick-list, and rapidly dying; yet neither he nor Sir Eyre Coote, who succeeded him, seems to have felt the necessity of saving the army by retiring from the place. They attributed the unhealthiness to the dykes being cut, and the surrounding country being flooded in the hot season. No matter what was the cause, the army was perishing, and ought to have been removed; but, so far from this, the Ministers seemed determined to keep possession of this useless and pestilential swamp at any cost. As it was imagined that the drinking of the water was the cause of the fever, Thames water was carried over for the troops, five hundred tons per week being required. But it was not the drinking it only that caused disease and death, but the standing and working in it, as many of them did, up to the middle for many hours together, and the malaria arising from the oozy soil. As the roofs in Flushing were knocked to pieces by the storming of the town, British workmen, with bricks, mortar, tiles, and tools, were sent over to repair them, so as to protect the sick in the hospitals, though plenty of workmen and materials might have been had in the country.

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