Colonel Lethbridge, an inspecting field officer, is under orders for Kingston, and there to wait your commands.
Colonel Baynes to Major-General Brock.
MONTREAL, July 8, 1812.
I was highly gratified yesterday in receiving your letters of the 3d July, for we have felt extremely anxious about you ever since we have learnt the unexpected declaration of war, which had been so long threatened that no one believed it would ever seriously take place; and even now it is the prevailing opinion that, from the opposition testified by the eastern states, offensive measures are not likely to be speedily adopted against this country. Sir George is inclined to let these sentiments take their course, and as little advantage would accrue by more active measures on our part, our present plans are all defensive. General de Rottenburg is arrived, and the flank companies embodied are on their way: this corps, with the embodied militia, will form a chain from La Prairie to St. John's, with a light corps advanced in their front. We have reports of the 103d regiment being in the river, and, it is added, recruits for the 100th regiment.
Sir George has had applications from so many quarters for militia below Kingston, that to insure a general arrangement and to adopt the best system that circumstances will admit, he has directed Colonel Lethbridge, the inspecting field officer here, to proceed through the line of settlements to see the several colonels and corps of militia so as to fix their quotas, and afterwards to proceed to Kingston and assume the command of that post, if necessary: he will be placed under your orders, but you will perhaps not wish to bring him in contact with the 41st regiment, as he is senior to Colonel Proctor.
Sir George desires me to say, that he does not attempt to prescribe specific rules for your guidance—they must be directed by your discretion and the circumstances of the time: the present order of the day with him is forbearance, until hostilities are more decidedly marked.
Sir George Prevost to Major-General Brock.
MONTREAL, July 10, 1812.
Colonel Lethbridge's departure for Kingston affords me an opportunity of replying more fully and confidentially to your letter of the 3d instant, than I could venture to have done the day before, yesterday by an uncertain conveyance. That officer has been desired to transmit to you, together with this dispatch, a copy of the instructions given to him for his guidance until the exigencies of the service make it necessary in your estimation to substitute others, or to employ the colonel in any other situation of command. In them you will find expressed my sentiments respecting the mode of conducting the war on our part, suited to the existing circumstances; and as they change, so must we vary our line of conduct, adapting it to our means of preserving entire the king's provinces.
Our numbers would not justify offensive operations being undertaken, unless they were solely calculated to strengthen a defensive attitude. I consider it prudent and politic to avoid any measure which can in its effect have a tendency to unite the people in the American States. Whilst disunion prevails among them, their attempts on these provinces will be feeble; it is, therefore, our duty carefully to avoid committing any act which may, even by construction, tend to unite the eastern and southern states, unless, by its perpetration, we are to derive a considerable and important advantage. But the government of the United States, resting on public opinion for all its measures, is liable to sudden and violent changes; it becomes an essential part of our duty to watch the effect of parties on its measures, and to adapt ours to the impulse given by those possessed of influence over the public mind in America.