134 SIR ISAAC BROCK.
whole navy would conquer ours on the ocean. We must take the continent from them. I wish never to see a peace till we do. God has given us the power and the means ; we are to blame if we do not use them. If we get the continent, she must allow us the freedom of the sea." This is the gentleman who, afterwards, in the character of a commissioner, — and it stands as a record of his unblushing apostacy, — signed the treaty of peace.
" Upon Major-General Brock's arrival at Fort George, he first heard of that most impolitic armistice, which, grounded on a letter from Sir George Prevost to Major-General Dearborn, had been concluded between the latter and Colonel Baynes, Sir George's adjutant-general. It provided that neither party should act offen- sively before the decision of the American government was taken on the subject. To the circumstance of the despatch, announcing the event, not having reached the gallant Brock before he had finished the business at Detroit, may the safety of the Canadas, in a great measure, be attributed. The armistice was already suffi- ciently injurious. It paralyzed the efforts of that active officer, who had resolved, and would doubtless have succeeded, in sweeping the American forces from the whole Niagara line. It enabled the Americans to recover from their consternation, to fortify and strengthen their own, and to accumulate the means of annoyance along the whole of our frontier. It sent nearly eight hundred of our Indian allies, in disgust, to their homes. It admitted the free transport of the enemy's ordnance stores and provisions by Lake Ontario, which gave increased facility to all his subsequent opera- tions in that quarter. — Ibid, pp. 76 to 78.
" This army, commanded by Major-General Van Rensselaer, of the New York militia, consisted, according to American official returns, of five thousand two hundred and six men ; exclusive of three hundred field and light artillery, eight hundred of the 6th, 13th, and 23d regiments, at Fort Niagara ; making a total of six thousand three hundred men. Of this powerful force, sixteen hun- dred and fifty regulars, under the command of Brigadier- General Smyth, were at Black Rock ■ three hundred and eighty-six militia at the latter place and Buffaloe ; and nine hundred regulars, and two thousand two hundred and seventy militia, at Lewistown, dis- tant from Black Rock twenty-eight miles. So that, including the eleven hundred men at Fort Niagara, the Americans had, along thirty-six miles of their frontier, a force of six thousand three hun- dred men, of whom nearly two-thirds were regular troops ; while
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