Towards the latter end of the same month, General Riall crowed the Niagara river at Black Rock, at the head of a force consisting of about 600 men, detachments from the 8th or the King's Regiment, 41st, 89th, and 100th Regiments, with a few Militia volunteers, exclusive of six or seven companies of the Royal Scots, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon, who were directed to land between the villages of Buffalo and Black Rock, about two miles distant from each other, with a view to divert the garrison of Black Rock, while the other troops were landing in front of that port; but in consequence of the severity of the weather, a number of the boats were stranded; by which means the troops were unable to land in time to effect the object for which they had been intended; however, the enemy was driven from both positions in a short time.
The American loss in this affair was upwards of five hundred, 130 of whom were prisoners of war; the loss of the British was inconsiderable compared with that of the enemy.
The state of exasperation to which the mind of every British subject had been wrought by the conduct of McClure in burning the town of Newark, and exposing all to the inclemency of a Canadian winter, both the helpless infant and infirm old age, was such that nothing but a similar retaliation could assuage; the whole line of frontier, from Buffalo to Fort Niagara, was therefore burnt to ashes.
Ample vengeance having thus been taken for the wanton conflagration and cruel outrages committed upon the defenceless inhabitants of Newark and neighbourhood, Lieutenant-General Drummond, on the 12th of January, 1814, issued a proclamation, in which he strongly deprecated the savage mode of warfare to which the enemy, by a departure from the established usages of war, had compelled him to resort. He traced with faithful precision and correctness the conduct that had marked the progress of the war on the part of the enemy, and concluded by lamenting the necessity imposed upon him of retaliating upon the subjects of America the miseries inflicted upon the inhabitants of Newark, but at the same time declared it not to be his intention further to pursue a system so revolting to his own feelings, and so little congenial to the British character, unless he should be compelled by the future measures of the enemy.
FOOTNOTES:
[204] Thompson's History of the War of 1812, Chap. xxii., pp. 179-181.
"Terms of capitulation were agreed upon, by which the whole of General Winchester's command that had survived the fury of the battle were surrendered prisoners of war, amounting to upwards of 600. In this sanguinary engagement, the loss of the Americans, in killed and wounded, was nearly 500; while that of the British was only twenty-four killed and 161 wounded."—Ib., pp. 176, 177.
[205] Christie's History of the War of 1812, Chap. v., pp. 100, 101.
[206] Tuttle, Chap. xxxviii., p. 396.
"The 104th (or New Brunswick Regiment) marched through from Fredericton to Upper Canada, several hundreds of miles, with extraordinary celerity, in the month of March, though their route from Fredericton to the River St. Lawrence lay through an uninhabited wilderness buried in snow, and never before traversed by troops." (Christie's History of the War of 1812, p. 103.)