On the 10th of December, Sir George Prevost received a communication from Major-General Wilkinson by a flag of truce, stating that the American government, adhering unalterably to their previously declared purpose, had placed 46 British officers into close confinement, there to remain until the same number of American officers and non-commissioned officers were released.  In consequence, the governor-general ordered all the American officers, prisoners of war, without exception of rank, to be placed into close confinement as hostages, until the number of 46 was completed over and above those already in confinement.  In pursuance of this order, Generals Winder, Chandler, and Winchester, were confined in a private house at Quebec, with as little inconvenience as their security would admit.

On the 15th April, 1814, after some negotiation, opened at the solicitation of the American government, a convention was entered into at Montreal, by which it was agreed to release the hostages and to make an exchange of prisoners, the American government relinquishing its pretensions to retaliate for the prisoners sent to England for legal trial as traitors to their country.  This convention was ratified in July, at Champlain, near the lines; but, whether by previous agreement or tacit understanding, the traitors, we believe, escaped the just punishment of their crime.

The remaining events of the war in Canada during the campaigns of 1812, 13 and 14, do not fall within the scope of this memoir.  Some we might chronicle with pride, but a few we could not record without shame; and, on the whole, we cannot but think that the same withering influence, which bound the hands and repressed the energies of “him who undoubtedly was the best officer that headed our troops throughout the war,"[130] was visible to the termination of the contest—­a contest in which we are satisfied the result would have been very different, “if a man of military genius, courage, quickness, and decision, had held the supreme command."[131] Indeed, when we reflect upon the management of that eventful war, we are often forcibly reminded, in the fatal loss of Sir Isaac Brock, of the pathetic lament of the gallant highlander, who, contrasting the irresolution of his present general with the deeds of his former chief, the renowned Grahame,[132] Viscount Dundee, mournfully exclaimed: 

    Oh! for one hour of Dundee!

During the progress of the war, the British government made several overtures for a reconciliation; and at length, when Napoleon’s disasters commenced, and the Eastern States were threatening to dissolve the union, Madison expressed a wish to treat with England, even at the end of 1813.  The negotiations were commenced in earnest at Ghent, in August, 1814, at a time when Great Britain, being at peace with the remainder of the world, was in a condition to prosecute the contest with all her energies; but her people wished for repose after the long and arduous struggle