Should you wish, however, to quit the Canadian staff with a view to serve in Europe, his royal highness will not object to your return to this country, under the arrangement of your being immediately succeeded by another officer.  And as Major-General Sheaffe is on the spot, and has strong claims to employment on the staff, his royal highness will have no objection to furnish Sir George Prevost with an authority to employ that officer in your room, provided he has not yet left Canada.

    I trust this arrangement may be acceptable to you.  An official
    communication to the effect of this note will be made to Sir
    George Prevost.

Colonel Baynes to Major-General Brock.

    QUEBEC, November 21, 1811.

We fortunately received yesterday the last batch of recruits for the 41st regiment, as from the present state of the weather and appearance of the river, I fear their situation would have been very desperate.  They have, poor devils, been sixteen weeks and four days on their passage, and have suffered much from dysentery.  Four men have died, and several are sick; but as the former detachment recovered fast when landed and taken care of, I doubt not that these will also:  they amount to three hundred, and are in general very fine young men.  What a noble battalion they will make when brought together; and the officers say that about 200 more were left at the depot, for want of room in the transport.

What do you think of the president’s speech?  In any government more consistent, it would mean war.  I think that he has committed himself more openly and more unjustifiably than could have been expected, in the relation of the affair of the Little Belt, by accusing that poor little sloop of a wanton act of aggression by attacking a huge American frigate, when Commodore Rodgers himself admits that he was for nearly eight hours the chasing vessel.

Governor Gore has revived the formation of the Glengary Fencibles, and I have shewn Sir George what passed on a former occasion.  I hope the latter will be able to provide for his school-fellow, Major-General Sheaffe,[39] and he expresses himself very anxious to do so.

Major-General Brock to Lieut.-General Sir G. Prevost, Bart., at Quebec.

    YORK, December 2, 1811.

The information contained in the message of the president to congress, relative to the existing differences between England and the United States, will justify, I presume to think, the adoption of such precautionary measures as may be necessary to meet all future exigencies.  Under this impression, I beg leave to submit to your excellency such observations as occur to me, to enable you to form a correct judgment; of the actual state of this province.

The military force which heretofore