In September the scene of action shifted to the West, where the British were trying to keep the command of Lake Erie, while the Americans were trying to wrest it from them.  Captain Oliver Perry, a first-rate American naval officer of only twenty-eight, was at Presqu’isle (now Erie) completing his flotilla.  He had his troubles, of course, especially with the militia garrison, who would not do their proper tour of duty.  ’I tell the boys to go, but the boys won’t go,’ was the only report forthcoming from one of several worthless colonels.  A still greater trouble for Perry was getting his vessels over the bar.  This had to be done without any guns on board, and with the cumbrous aid of ‘camels,’ which are any kind of air-tanks made fast to the sides low down, in order to raise the hull as much as possible.  But, luckily for Perry, his opponent, Captain Barclay of the Royal Navy, an energetic and capable young officer of thirty-two, was called upon to face worse troubles still.  Barclay was, indeed, the first to get afloat.  But he had to give up the blockade of Presqu’isle, and so let Perry out, because he had the rawest of crews, the scantiest of equipment, and nothing left to eat.  Then, when he ran back to Amherstburg, he found Procter also facing a state of semi-starvation, while thousands of Indian families were clamouring for food.  Thus there was no other choice but either to fight or starve; for there was not the slightest chance of replenishing stores unless the line of the lake was clear.

So Barclay sailed out with his six little British vessels, armed by the odds and ends of whatever ordnance could be spared from Amherstburg and manned by almost any crews but sailors.  Even the flagship Detroit had only ten real seamen, all told.  Ammunition was likewise very scarce, and so defective that the guns had to be fired by the flash of a pistol.  Perry also had a makeshift flotilla, partly manned by drafts from Harrison’s army.  But, on the whole, the odds in his favour were fairly shown by the number of vessels in the respective flotillas, nine American against the British six.

Barclay had only thirty miles to make in a direct south-easterly line from Amherstburg to reach Perry at Put-in Bay in the Bass Islands, where, on the morning of September 10, the opposing forces met.  The battle raged for two hours at the very closest quarters till Perry’s flagship Lawrence struck to Barclay’s own Detroit.  But Perry had previously left the Lawrence for the fresh Niagara; and he now bore down on the battered Detroit, which had meanwhile fallen foul of the only other sizable British vessel, the Queen Charlotte.  This was fatal for Barclay.  The whole British flotilla surrendered after a desperate resistance and an utterly disabling loss.  From that time on to the end of the war Lake Erie remained completely under American control.