- voted himself to the task of conciliating the people generally,
and of inspiring them with a proper feeling of patriotism. The militia of the Province was now called out, and instructed to march to the frontiers—a summons which was responded to more generally than even Brock had expected, as the season of harvest was near at hand, and cynics were wont to remark that Canadian farmers cared more for the crops than for the preservation of British connection. A troop of volunteer cavalry was incorporated, and a company of young men, sons of farmers in the neighbourhood of York, came with their draught horses for the equipment of a car-brigade. An extra session of the Legislature was summoned, and after a short conference that body adjourned until the 27th of July. Brock hastened over to Fort George, where he awaited instructions from the Governor-General, Sir George Prevost. With regard to remote districts, however he rightly conceived that delay might be dangerous, and he despatched intelligence of the declaration of war to Captain Roberts, who was stationed at Fort St. Joseph with a detachment of the 10th Royal Veterans. He instructed that officer to summon to his aid all the Indians he could induce to join him, and to attack Fort Michillimackinack if he could see any reasonable prospect of reducing it. The presence of Brock himself was required on the Niagara frontier, where the American regulars and militia made a daily parade of their forces on the eastern side of the river. Brock could easily have demolished the American Fort Niagara, on the shore opposite to Fort George, but was averse to taking so decided a step without specific instructions. The instructions were somewhat slow in arriving, and when they finally arrived they were not very specific. Their effect was to invest Brock with power to act according to his discretion, but a good deal was said about the expediency of forbearance until hostilities should be more decidedly marked.
On the l2th of July hostilities were commenced by the American Brigadier-General Hull, who, with a force of 2,500 men, crossed the Detroit River at Sandwich. He unfurled the American standard, and put forth a pretentious and extravagant proclamation, asserting that he came with a force sufficient to look down all opposition, which force was but the vanguard of another much greater. From Sandwich he contemplated an advance upon Amherstburg—called by the Americans Fort Malden—where there was a very small force, altogether insufficient to oppose any prolonged resistance to such an
