For ten long years of inglorious peace Brock had now been serving on in Canada, while his comrades in arms were winning distinction on the battlefields of Europe.  This was partly due to his own excellence:  he was too good a man to be spared after his first five years were up in 1807; for the era of American hostility had then begun.  He had always been observant.  But after 1807 he had redoubled his efforts to ‘learn Canada,’ and learn her thoroughly.  People and natural resources, products and means of transport, armed strength on both sides of the line and the best plan of defence, all were studied with unremitting zeal.  In 1811 he became the acting lieutenant-governor and commander of the forces in Upper Canada, where he soon found out that the members of parliament returned by the ‘American vote’ were bent on thwarting every effort he could make to prepare the province against the impending storm.  In 1812, on the very day he heard that war had been declared, he wished to strike the unready Americans hard and instantly at one of their three accessible points of assembly-Fort Niagara, at the upper end of Lake Ontario, opposite Fort George, which stood on the other side of the Niagara river; Sackett’s Harbour, at the lower end of Lake Ontario, thirty-six miles from Kingston; and Ogdensburg, on the upper St Lawrence, opposite Fort Prescott.  But Sir George Prevost, the governor-general, was averse from an open act of war against the Northern States, because they were hostile to Napoleon and in favour of maintaining peace with the British; while Brock himself was soon turned from this purpose by news of Hull’s American invasion farther west, as well as by the necessity of assembling his own thwarting little parliament at York.

The nine days’ session, from July 27 to August 5, yielded the indispensable supplies.  But the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, as a necessary war measure, was prevented by the disloyal minority, some of whom wished to see the British defeated and all of whom were ready to break their oath of allegiance whenever it suited them to do so.  The patriotic majority, returned by the votes of United Empire Loyalists and all others who were British born and bred, issued an address that echoed the appeal made by Brock himself in the following words:  ’We are engaged in an awful and eventful contest.  By unanimity and despatch in our councils and by vigour in our operations we may teach the enemy this lesson:  That a country defended by free men, enthusiastically devoted to the cause of their King and Constitution, can never be conquered.’

On August 5, being at last clear of his immediate duties as a civil governor, Brock threw himself ardently into the work of defeating Hull, who had crossed over into Canada from Detroit on July 11 and issued a proclamation at Sandwich the following day.  This proclamation shows admirably the sort of impression which the invaders wished to produce on Canadians.