was afforded, before the close of the year, in the unopposed devas- tation of great part of the Indian country by General Harrison, while Colonel Proctor was compelled by his orders to refrain from advancing to the aid of our allies. This want of co-operation had a most unfavourable effect upon the minds of the Indians, and was an impolitic and unmanly desertion of them." — Campaigns in the Canadas.
Note. — Although the editor does not approve of the spirit of acrimony towards Sir George Prevost, which is manifested throughout the article in the Quarterly Review, from which the preceding extracts are taken, yet he feels it a sacred obligation due to the memory of Sir Isaac Brock to with- hold nothing descriptive of his energetic views and intentions, and of the obstacles he experienced in the vigorous prosecution of the contest, — obstacles which his gallant spirit could not brook, and which necessarily exposed " his valuable life" much more than it would have been in offen- sive operations. Sir George Prevost was most unfortunately induced to propose the armistice, in the expectation that the American government would stay all hostility on learning the repeal of the British orders in council, which were the chief among the alleged causes of the war ; and this measure was attended with very prejudicial consequences, as it ren- dered unavailing the command of the lakes, which was then held by the British. It also caused a delay of nearly a fortnight in the contemplated attack of Sackett's Harbour by Sir Isaac Brock, as he returned from Detroit to Fort George on the 24th August, and the cessation of the armistice was not known at the latter post until the 4th September. This attack, how- ever, could have been still carried into effect, and it was only relinquished by express orders from the commander in chief. The armistice was doubt- less entered into as well from an terror in judgment as from expectations which were not realized ; but as the official intelligence of the president's refusal to continue the suspension of hostilities reached Sir George Prevost, at Montreal, on the 30th August, — a day or two before Captain Glegg, with the dispatches of the capture of Detroit, — it is difficult to account for his motive (unless it were that assigned at page 15) in preventing the attempt on Sackett's Harbour, as proposed to him by Major-General Brock, through his gallant aid-de-camp, a meritorious and talented officer.
The distance, by water, between Fort George and Kingston, vik York, is one hundred and eighty miles, and from Kingston to Sackett's Harbour only thirty-six miles, so that the destruction of the arsenal at the last named post could have been effected by the 1st of September, had not the armistice prevented it.
Since the first memoir was printed, the editor has been informed by a provincial officer, who commanded the schooner Lady Prevost, of 14 guns, that on the 23d August he met Major-General Brock on Lake Erie, return- ing in the schooner Chippewa from the capture of Detroit, and, after saluting him with seventeen guns, he went on board the latter vessel, and gave the first intelligence of the armistice to the general, who, on hearing it, could not conceal his deep regret and mortification. — Ed.
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