Walter R. Nursey

“ Henry Clay, another statesman, "verily believed that the militia of Kentucky alone were competent to place Upper Canada at the feet of the Americans." Calhoun, also a "war-hawk," had said that "in four weeks from the time of the declaration of war the whole of Upper and part of Lower Canada would be in possession of the United States." All of this was only the spread-eagle bombast of amateur filibusters, as events proved, but good cause for Brock, who had been appointed janitor of Canada and been given the keys of the country, to ponder deeply. ”

“ A Canadian merchant schooner was boarded in mid-lake by an American brig, taken to Sackett's Harbour and stripped. The Americans were pouring rations and munitions of war into Detroit. If Brock's hands were shackled, he knew the art of sitting tight. He made another flying trip to Amherstburg, taking one hundred men of the 41st, in the face of Prevost's standing orders to "exercise the [Pg 79] strictest economy." ”

“ To defend her broken frontier Canada had only 1,450 British soldiers and a militia—at that moment—chiefly on paper. If the Indians in [Pg 76] the West were to be impressed with British supremacy—for they were making a stand against 2,000 American soldiers on the banks of the Wabash, in Ohio, where eighteen years before they had been beaten by General Wayne at Miami—then Amherstburg must be greatly strengthened and the Americans deterred from attack. How was Brock to obtain troops, and how were they to be equipped? ”