We have previously alluded (page 206) to that part of the preceding letter which relates to the capture of Michilimakinack.  This capture appears to have been effected contrary to Sir George Prevost’s orders, as Fort St. Joseph being nearly 350 miles from Detroit and Sandwich, and as the expedition left the fort only four days after Hull’s invasion, it was scarcely possible that Captain Roberts was then aware of that circumstance.  Neither in his letter to the adjutant-general, announcing the capture, does he excuse himself by stating that he had heard of the invasion.  In his dispatch to Earl Bathurst, written exactly a fortnight after the preceding letter, and dated Montreal, August 26, Sir George Prevost, in communicating the surrender of Detroit, expressed himself in very altered language, as he said: 

“In these measures he[60] was most opportunely aided by the fortunate surrender of Fort Michilimakinack, which, giving spirit and confidence to the Indian tribes in its neighbourhood, part of whom assisted in its capture, determined them to advance upon the rear and flanks of the American army, as soon as they heard that it had entered the province.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 58:  This order strikes us as an unmilitary interference on the part of Sir George Prevost with Major-General Brock’s authority, Captain Roberts being under the immediate command of the latter general.]

[Footnote 59:  See Captain Roberts’ Dispatch, Appendix A, Sec. 1, No. 2.]

[Footnote 60:  Major-General Brock.]

CHAPTER XI.

Whilst Major-General Brock impatiently lingered on the Niagara frontier, so as to give time to the legislature to assemble at York, he dispatched Colonel Proctor, of the 41st regiment, with such reinforcements as could be spared, to assume the command at Amherstburg.  General Hull, after crossing to Sandwich, remained for some time inactive, under pretext of making preparations for the reduction of Amherstburg, or Malden, as the Americans called it, which lay but eighteen miles below him, and was not in a condition to withstand a regular siege.  During the delay, three detachments of his army were on three successive days beaten back by a small number of the 41st regiment and a few Indians.  Michilimakinack had fallen since the invasion, and the Indians from that quarter were flocking to the British standard.  Our naval force being superior on the lake, Colonel Proctor pushed over to Brownstown, an American village, about 25 miles from Detroit, and nearly opposite to Amherstburg, a small detachment of the 41st regiment, and some Indians under the celebrated Tecumseh, who, with 70 of the latter, awaited in ambush near that village a party of 200 Americans, under Major Van Home, on their march[61] from Detroit to the River Raisin, (40 miles south of Detroit,) to