Thus identified as she was with the force which in defiance of the law of nations and every principle of natural justice had invaded Upper Canada and made war upon its unoffending inhabitants, she was boarded, and after a resistance in which some desperate wounds were inflicted upon the assailants she was carried.  If any peaceable citizens of the United States perished in the conflict, it was and is unknown to the captors, and it was and is equally unknown to them whether any such were there.  Before this vessel was thus taken not a gun had been fired by the force under the orders of Colonel McNab, even upon this gang of pirates, much less upon any peaceable citizen of the United States.  It must therefore have been a consciousness of the guilty service she was engaged in that led those who were employing her to think an armed guard necessary for her defense.  Peaceable citizens of the United States were not likely to be found in a vessel so employed at such a place and in such a juncture, and if they were there their presence, especially unknown as it was to the captors, could not prevent, in law or reason, this necessary act of self-defense.

Fifteen days had elapsed since the invasion of Upper Canada by a force enlisted, armed, and equipped openly in the State of New York.  The country where this outrage upon the law of nations was committed is populous.  Buffalo also contains 15,000 inhabitants.  The public authorities, it is true, gave no countenance to those flagrant acts, but it did not prevent them or in the slightest degree obstruct them further than by issuing proclamations, which were disregarded.

Perhaps they could not, but in either case the insult and injury to the inhabitants of Canada were the same and their right to defend themselves equally unquestionable.

No wanton injury was committed by the party who gallantly effected this service.  They loosed the vessel from the wharf, and finding they could not tow her against the rapid current of the Niagara, they abandoned the effort to secure her, set her on fire, and let her drift down the stream.

The prisoners taken were a man who, it will be seen by the documents accompanying this dispatch, avowed himself to be a subject of Her Majesty, inhabiting Upper Canada, who had lately been traitorously in arms in that Province, and, having fled to the United States, was then on board for the purpose of going to the camp at Navy Island; and a boy, who, being born in Lower Canada, was probably residing in the United States, and who, being afraid to land from the boat in consequence of the firing kept up by the guard on the shore, was placed in one of the boats under Captain Drew and taken over to our side, from whence he was sent home the next day by the Falls ferry with money given him to bear his expenses.