"Of the 100th Regiment."
FOOTNOTES:
[198] Such was the high esteem in which the character of General Brock was held even by the enemy, that during the movement of the funeral procession of that brave man from Queenston to Fort George, a distance of seven miles, minute guns were fired at every American post on that part of the lines; and even the appearance of hostilities was suspended.
[199] Thompson's History of the War of 1812, Chap. xv.
CHAPTER LIV.
Third American Invasion of Upper Canada, at and near Fort Erie, on the Niagara River, under General Smyth—His Address to his Soldiers—The Ludicrous and Disgraceful Failure of his Expedition—Three American Expeditions Repelled in 1812 by the Spartan Bands of Canadian Volunteers, assisted by a Few Regiments of English Soldiers.
Such was the result of the second invasion of Canada—the first invasion on the Niagara frontier by the American "Grand Army of the Centre."
The Americans, after recovering in some measure from their disastrous defeat at Queenston, commenced gigantic preparations for assembling another army near Buffalo, for a second descent on the Niagara frontier, under the command of General Smyth, with an army which, according to the latest accounts of the American reports themselves, was 8,000 strong, with fifteen pieces of field ordnance—sustained in the rear by a populous and fertile country, and the facility afforded by good roads to draw the supplies for his army and to bring into the field a formidable artillery. So confident was General Smyth himself of a successful result of his expedition, that he boasted on the 10th of November "that in a few days the troops under his command would plant the American standard in Canada," and issued an order to the commandant of Fort Niagara to save the buildings at Fort George and the adjacent town of Newark (Niagara), as they would be required for winter quarters for the "Army of the Centre."
It was a difficult if not doubtful task for General Sheaffe and the regular and militia officers under his command to provide for the defence of the country against such formidable odds; for up to the time at which the American general had violated the terms of the armistice not a single British soldier had arrived to reinforce the little Canadian army; and "after the conflict at Queenston, the militia, which constituted the majority of the British force, had been permitted to return home to secure the remainder of their harvest." (Thompson.)