power over the sentence of such general courts martial as you may be called on to assemble, was signed by me ten days since, and has I hope reached you.

I am in hourly expectation of receiving from General Dearborn intelligence respecting the reception of the proposed suspension of hostilities, in consequence of the revocation of the orders in council, which are the plea for war in the American cabinet; and also whether Mr. Baker has been allowed to assume, pro tempore, the character of a charge d’affaires at Washington, where Mr. Foster had left him in a demi-official capacity.  I consider the arrangement entered into by General Dearborn with Colonel Baynes, requiring the confirmation of the president, to establish its sacredness.

The king’s government having most unequivocally expressed to me their desire to preserve peace with the United States, that they might, uninterrupted, pursue, with the whole disposable force of the country, the great interest committed in Europe, I have endeavoured to be instrumental in the accomplishment of their views; but I consider it most fortunate to have been enabled to do so without interfering with your operations on the Detroit.

    I have sent you men, money, and stores of every kind.

Sir George Prevost to Major-General Brock.

    Head Quarters, Montreal, Aug. 31, 1812.

I had scarcely closed the letters I addressed to you yesterday, when an aide-de-camp from Major-General Dearborn made his appearance, and delivered to me the dispatch herewith transmitted.  It will expose to your view the disposition of the president of the United States on the provisional measure temporarily agreed upon between the American commander-in-chief and myself, in consequence of an earnest desire not to widen the breach existing between the two countries, the revocation of the orders in council having removed the plea used in congress for a declaration of war against Great Britain.

I am much disappointed that the particulars of the surrender of Detroit have not as yet reached me, particularly as my aide-de-camp, Captain Coore, is to leave Montreal this evening for Quebec, where a ship of war is on the point of sailing for Halifax, from whence I expect the admiral will give him a conveyance for England.

Being unacquainted with the conditions attached to the surrender of Brigadier-General Hull’s army, and giving scope to your expression of prisoners of war, I have made arrangements for increasing their security against any attempt to rescue them, by ordering Captain Gray to proceed with two flank companies to Prescot.

[The dispatch from General Dearborn, dated Greenbush, August 26, was to announce the discontinuance of the temporary armistice agreed to between him and Colonel Baynes, in four days after the receipt of the communication at the frontier posts in Canada.  The American general added:  “If a suspension of offensive operations shall have been mutually consented to between General Hull and the commanding officer of the British forces at and near Detroit, as proposed, they will respectively be authorized, at the expiration of four days subsequent to their receiving copies of this communication, to consider themselves released from any agreement thus entered into.”]