opposite Black Rock on the Niagara River, was also attended with the same failure that attended the futile attempts to cross the Detroit and to occupy the heights of Queenston.  At the close of 1812 Upper Canada was entirely free from the army of the republic, the Union Jack floated above the fort at Detroit, and the ambitious plan of invading the French province and seizing Montreal was given up as a result of the disasters to the enemy in the west.  The party of peace in New England gathered strength, and the promoters of the war had no consolation except the triumphs obtained at sea by some heavily armed and well manned frigates of the United States to the surprise of the government and people of England, who never anticipated that their maritime superiority could be in any way endangered by a nation whose naval strength was considered so insignificant.  But these victories of the republic on the ocean during the first year of the war were soon effaced by the records of the two subsequent years when “The Chesapeake” was captured by “The Shannon” and other successes of the British ships restored the prestige of England on the sea.

During the second year of the war the United States won some military and naval successes in the upper province, although the final results of the campaign were largely in favour of the defenders of Canada.  The war opened with the defeat of General Winchester at Frenchtown on the River Raisins in the present state of Michigan; but this success, which was won by General Procter, was soon forgotten in the taking of York, the capital of the province, and the destruction of its public buildings.  This event forced General Sheaffe to retire to Kingston, while General Vincent retreated to Burlington Heights as soon as the invading army occupied Fort George and dominated the Niagara frontier.  Sir George Prevost showed his military incapacity at Sackett’s Harbour, where he had it in his power to capture a post which was an important base of operations against the province.  On the other hand Colonel George Macdonell made a successful attack on Ogdensburg and fittingly avenged the raid that an American force had made a short time previously on Elizabethtown, which was called Brockville not long afterwards in honour of the noted general.  An advance of the invading army against General Vincent was checked by the memorable success won at Stoney Creek by Colonel Harvey and the surrender at Beaver Dams of Colonel Boerstler to Lieutenant Fitzgibbon, whose clever strategy enabled him to capture a large force of the enemy while in command of a few soldiers and Indians.  When September arrived, the small, though all-important, British fleet on Lake Erie, under the command of Captain Barclay, sustained a fatal defeat at Put-in-Bay, and the United States vessels under Commodore Perry held full control of Lake Erie.  A few weeks later, General Procter lost the reputation which he had won in January by his defeat of Winchester, and was beaten, under circumstances which disgraced him in the opinion of his superiors, on the River Thames not far from the Indian village of Moraviantown.  The American forces were led by General Harrison, who had won some reputation in the Indian campaign in the north-west and who subsequently became, as his son in later times, a president of the United States.