The Americans, burning to wipe away the stain of their discomfiture at Detroit, and apparently determined to penetrate into Upper Canada at any risk, concentrated with those views, along the Niagara frontier, an army consisting, according to their own official returns, of 5,206 men, under Major-General Van Rensselaer, of the New York militia, exclusive of 300 field and light artillery, 800 of the 6th, 13th, and 23d regiments, at Fort Niagara; making a total of 6,300 men.  Of this powerful force, 1,650 regulars, under the command of Brigadier Smyth, were at Black Rock; 386 militia at the last named place and Buffalo; and 900 regulars and 2,270 militia at Lewistown, distant from Black Rock 28 miles.  Thus the enemy had, along their frontier of 36 miles, 3,650 regulars and 2,650 militia.[95] To oppose this force Major-General Brock, whose head quarters were at Fort George, had under his immediate orders part of the 41st and 49th regiments, a few companies of militia, amounting to nearly half these regulars, and from 200 to 300 Indians—­in all about 1,500 men—­but so dispersed in different posts at and between Fort Erie and Fort George, (34 miles apart,) that only a small number was quickly available at any one point.  With unwearied diligence the British commander watched the motions of the enemy; but under these circumstances it was impossible to prevent the landing of the hostile troops, especially when their preparations were favored by the obscurity of the night.

On the 9th of October, the brig Detroit, of 200 tons and 6 guns, (lately the U.S. brig Adams,) and the North-West Company’s brig Caledonia, of about 100 tons, having arrived the preceding day from Detroit, were boarded and carried opposite Fort Erie, before the dawn of day, by Lieutenant Elliott, of the American navy, with 100 seamen and soldiers in two large boats.  This officer was at this time at Black Rock, superintending the equipment of some schooners, lately purchased for the service of Lake Erie.  But for the defensive measures to which Major-General Brock was restricted, he would probably have destroyed these very schooners, for whose equipment, as vessels of war, Lieutenant Elliott and 50 seamen had been sent from New York.  The two British brigs contained 40 prisoners, some cannon and small arms, captured at Detroit, exclusive of a valuable quantity of furs belonging to the North-West Company, in the Caledonia.  Joined by the prisoners, the Americans who boarded numbered 140, and the crews of the two brigs, consisting of militia and Canadian seamen, amounted to 68.  After the capture, Lieutenant Elliott succeeded in getting the Caledonia close under the batteries at Black Rock, but he was compelled, by a few well-directed shots from the Canada shore, to run the Detroit upon Squaw Island.  Here she was boarded by a subaltern’s detachment from Fort Erie, and the Americans soon after completed her destruction by setting her on fire.  Some lives were lost upon this occasion, and among the Americans a Major Cuyler was killed by a shot from Fort Erie, as he was riding along the beach on the opposite side of the river.