Irresolution ruled.
Proctor's irresolution, timidity, or want of promptness, led to many disasters, notably that at Moraviantown, and at length was his own destruction.
NOTE 2, [page 70].
Our people, by forced parole held.
James says, "No sooner had the American Army got possession of the Niagara frontier [27th May, 1813] than officers with parties were sent to every farmhouse and hovel in the neighbourhood to exact a parole from the male inhabitants of almost every age. Some were glad of this excuse for remaining peaceably at their houses, and those who made any opposition were threatened to be sent across the river, and thrown into a noisome prison."
NOTE 3, [page 72].
| The substance all too poor and sparse Our stinted fields may grow. |
The war was declared on the 18th of June, and at once every able male in the Provinces sprang to arms. The necessary absence from their farms thus forced upon them curtailed the sowing, and lessened the harvest, though the women and children of every rank did their utmost to countervail the losses thus threatened. The next year there was less to sow and less, consequently, to reap, notwithstanding the leave granted to the militia at all possible junctures, to attend to their work; but intermittent farming is not more successful than other occasionally prosecuted labour, and the war laid bare many previously fruitful clearings.
NOTE 4, [page 73].
Or many-rattled snake.