"This achievement, effected by the promptitude and judicious arrangements of Captain Roberts, not only inspired the people with confidence, and gave a turn to the present campaign fatal to the views of the United States, by enabling us to maintain our influence among the Indians of the West, which otherwise must have been lost, but it essentially contributed to the successful struggle afterwards maintained against the American arms in Upper Canada. General Hull, after the capture of his army and the fall of Detroit, in his official despatch relative to these events, attributes his disasters to the fall of Mackinac; after the surrender of which, almost every tribe and nation of Indians, except a part of the Miamis and Delawares, north from beyond Lake Superior, west from beyond the Mississippi, south from Ohio and the Wabash, and east from every part of Upper Canada, and from all the intermediate country, joined in open hostility against the army he commanded."[197]
"General Hull remained some time inactive, under pretext of making preparation to prosecute the campaign with vigour; but it was the fallacious hope of an early insurrection in his favour that lulled him into a supineness fatal to the safety of his army. Amherstburg lay about eighteen miles below him, and the mud and picketed fortifications of that post was not in a condition to make resistance against a regular siege. The Americans, confident of an easy conquest, had not as yet a single cannon or mortar mounted, and to endeavour to take it at the point of the bayonet he thought inexpedient. During this delay his situation became more and more precarious; three detachments from his army were, on three successive days, beaten back by a handful of the 41st Regiment and a few Indians, from a bridge over the River Canard, three miles from Amherstburg, which they endeavoured to seize, in order to open the route to that port. Another detachment, in attempting to ford the river (Canard) higher up, was put to flight by a small party of eighteen or twenty Indians who lay concealed in the grass. The enemy, panic-struck at their sudden and hideous yell, fled with precipitancy, leaving their arms, accoutrements, and haversacks. The British sloop of war Queen Charlotte, carrying eighteen twenty-four pounders, lay in the Detroit river, opposite the mouth of the River Canard, so that it was impossible for the Americans to convey by water to Amherstburg any artillery, of which, after much labour, they had at last mounted two twenty-four-pounders. Lieutenant Rolette, commanding the armed brig Hunter, had on the 3rd of July, at about ten o'clock in the forenoon, by a bold attempt in his barge, with only six men, succeeded in capturing the Cayahaga packet, bound from Miami river to Detroit with troops, and loaded with baggage, and the hospital stores of the American army, the loss of which was now severely felt. Mackinac, in his rear, had been taken since the commencement of the invasion, while the Indians from that quarter were flocking to the British standard. Our naval force being superior on the lake, Colonel Proctor pushed over to Brownstown, a village nearly opposite to Amherstburg, twenty miles below Detroit, with a small detachment of the 41st Regiment, under the command of Captain Tallon, with a few Indians, who on the 5th of August surprised and routed a party of 200 Americans under Major Vanhorne, on their way from Detroit to River Raisin, to meet a detachment of volunteers from Ohio, under Captain Brush, with a convoy of provisions for the army. In this affair a quantity of booty, and General Hull's despatches to the Secretary at War, fell into the hands of the victors, whereby the deplorable state of the American army was disclosed." * *
"In the interim, the American general received a despatch from General Hull, on the Niagara frontier, intimating that he could not expect co-operation in that quarter, which would have created a diversion in his favour. Such was the hopeless state of things when the American general began to be sensible of his danger. His army hemmed in on every side, cut off from its resources, and hourly wasting away with defeat, death, sickness, and fatigue, unsupported by an expected insurrection of Canadians in his favour, and unaided by any co-operating army, and, above all, dismayed at the report of General Brock's resolution to advance against him; his schemes of conquest vanquished, and in the sinking state of his affairs, he saw no other alternative than to retreat back to Detroit, under pretence of concentrating his main army, and after re-opening his communications with the Rivers Raisin and Miami, through which he received his whole supplies, to resume offensive operations against Upper Canada. Accordingly, on the evening of the 7th and the morning of the 8th of August, the whole of his army, except a garrison of 250 men and a few artillery left in charge of a small fortress they had thrown up on the British side, a little below Detroit, recrossed the river.
"General Hull now detached a body of 600 men, under Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, to dislodge the British from Brownstown, and open the communication with the Rivers Raisin and Miami, upon which the existence of the army depended. On the 9th, this detachment was met by the British and Indians under Major Muir at Magnogo, between Brownstown and Detroit, which, after a desperate battle, in which the Americans lost seventy-five men, was obliged to retreat with inconsiderable loss compared with that of the Americans.
"On the 7th, Lieutenant Rolette, with the boats of the Queen Charlotte and Hunter, under cover of the guns of the latter, attacked and captured a convoy of eleven batteaux and boats, having on board fifty-six of their wounded, and two English prisoners, on their way from Magnogo to Detroit, escorted by 250 American troops on shore.
"Amidst these reverses of fortune, the American general was startled at the summons to surrender the fort of Detroit, by General Brock, who, after having closed the public business at York, and prorogued Parliament, and collecting a few regulars and militia with incredible exertion, had reached Amherstburg by the 13th of August. So resolute a demand struck the American commander with dismay, who, at the most, had never contemplated a pursuit into his own territory by the British. He still, however, maintained sufficient presence of mind to return a prompt and positive refusal, upon receipt of which, the British, who now occupied the ground so lately in possession of the enemy, in front of Detroit, where they had thrown up a battery (erected by night) under the direction of Captain Dixon, of the Royal Engineers, commenced, on the afternoon of the 15th, a brisk cannonade on Detroit, from two five-and-a-half-inch mortars, and two twelve-pounders, under the management of Captain Hall, of the Provincial Navy, with a party of sailors, which was continued for upwards of an hour with great effect. Early in the morning of the 16th the cannonade recommenced, while General Brock, with about 700 regulars and militia, and 600 Indians, crossed the river without opposition at the Spring Wells, three miles below Detroit, under cover of the Queen Charlotte and Hunter. This small but resolute force, after forming upon the beach, advanced in column, flanked on the left by the Indians, with the river of Detroit on their right, and took (at the distance of a mile) position in line, in front of the American fort, into which the enemy had retired. Here every preparation was making for an immediate assault, when, to the surprise of both armies, a white flag was seen flying upon the walls of the fort, and a messenger advancing with proposals from the American general to capitulate. Lieutenant-Colonel McDowell, of the Militia, and Major Glegg, of the 49th Regiment, aide-de-camp to General Brock, immediately proceeded by his orders to the tent of the American general, where, in a few minutes, they dictated the terms of capitulation. By this the whole American army, including a detachment of 350 men, under Colonels McArthur and Cass, dispatched on the 14th for River Raisin to escort the provisions in charge of Captain Brush from thence to Detroit, became prisoners of war; and Detroit, with the Michigan territory, were surrendered to the British arms, without the effusion of a single drop of British blood.
"The American statements of their own strength nearly coincide with British reports, which make it 2,500 men, regulars and militia. The militia were paroled, and permitted to return home, on condition of not serving during the present war. The regulars were sent down to Quebec.
"The British force, including Indians, is acknowledged by the enemy to have consisted of only 1,030 men or thereabout. Our own, and perhaps more correct reports, state it to have consisted of 350 regular troops, 400 militia, and 600 Indians, who, upon the present occasion, are said not to have sullied the glory of the day by any wanton acts of savage barbarity incident to the Indian mode of warfare. Twenty-five pieces of iron and eight pieces of brass ordnance, with an immense quantity of stores of every description, and one armed brig, called the John Adams (afterwards named Detroit), fell into the hands of the British" [besides nearly 3,000 stand of small arms, much ammunition, and three weeks' provisions for the whole army]. (Thompson's History of the War of 1812, pp. 67-72.)
"Thus ended this (first) rash and imbecile attempt at the conquest of Canada. The loss of Mackinac and Detroit, with the flower of their army, at the outset of the war, was a disgrace that filled the American Government with consternation and alarm, as their plans of aggrandisement were not only totally defeated, but their whole western frontier was laid open to the inroads of the hostile Indians, and at the mercy of a people still warm with indignation at the late invasion."—Ib., pp. 72, 73.
General Brock, the day after taking Detroit, addressed to the inhabitants of the Michigan territory the following Proclamation: