York; but, as it was, acting Commander Barclay’s whole attention was necessarily confined to the equipment of a squadron at Kingston, on Lake Ontario, where he arrived just before the commencement of the enemy’s operations against the infant capital of Upper Canada. The only British armed vessels then on that lake were the Royal George of 20 guns, a brig of 14 guns, and three schooners, all manned by fresh-water sailors, and commanded by a very incompetent provincial officer. In the beginning of May, another 20-gun ship was launched, and named the Wolfe; and by the end of the same month. Sir James Lucas Yeo having arrived from England, with 4 commanders, 8 lieutenants, 24 midshipmen, and about 450 picked seamen, the whole were ready for active service.
The subject of this memoir was now appointed to the command of the naval force on Lake Erie; an appointment which Captain William Howe Mulcaster, another of Sir James L. Yeo’s officers, had declined accepting, on account of the exceedingly bad equipment of the vessels, five in number, but not equal in aggregate force to a British 20-gun ship.
After co-operating for a short time with the troops retreating from the Niagara frontier. Captain Barclay proceeded to Amherstburg, where he arrived with only four commissioned officers and nineteen seamen, about the middle of June, at which time the enemy’s naval force on Lake Erie consisted of seven vessels, all well equipped and manned, under the orders of Captain Oliver Hazard Perry, of the United States navy. By the end of August, each of the rival squadrons was augmented, – the American by two brigs, of about 460 tons each, built at Presqu’ Isle; and the British, by a ship named the Detroit, of about 305 tons, which Captain Barclay had found on the stocks at Amherstburg, and used every energy to get launched. The following authentic statement will place the superiority of the enemy beyond a doubt:
