220 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
found necessary to lighten the waggons by placing part of their con- 
tents on pack horses, and the infantry had to wade to the knees in 
many places, while they suffered greatly from innumerable swarms of 
flies and mosquitoes.! Torrents of rain fell daily and the surrounding 
country was flooded in every direction. Following the example of 
General Wayne in his campaign of 1794, the encampment was sur- 
rounded every night by a breastwork of felled trees as a precaution 
against surprise. On arriving at the height of land it was found to 
be impossible to proceed further until the floods subsided, and a post 
was established which received the significant name of Fort Necessity. 
Here General Lucas rejoined the army, bringing on the whole an 
encouraging report as to the disposition of the Indians he had visited, 
and a number of chiefs and warriors from the neighbouring villages 
came in and were treated partly as guides and partly as hostages. Some 
of these may have been spies employed by Tecumseh and Walk-in-the- 
Water, who duly reported the progress of the expedition. The Shaw- 
nees and others who acknowledged the leadership of the Prophet, were 
eager to attack it while entangled in these swamps, but were dissuaded 
by British agents in pursuance of their instructions to maintain peace 
as long as possible? From this place Hull wrote his first despatch to 
the Secretary of War since leaving Urbana. It was dated on the 24th 
of June, and related that “heavy and incessant rains had rendered it 
impossible to make that progress which the state of things may require 
and my own wishes strongly impel.’ Officers and men were in good 
health and “ animated by a laudable spirit.” After referring to Brock’s 
arrival at Amherstburg and the report that large numbers of Indians 
were assembling at that place and Brownstown, he remarked, “in the 
event of hostilities T feel a confidence that the force under my command 
will be superior to any which can be opposed to it; it now exceeds 
two thousand rank and file’? To Major Witherell, of the Michigan 
Legion, he wrote hopefully at the same time that he would soon reach 
Detroit with 2,200 men. Two days march brought him to the head 
of boat navigation on Blanchard’s Fork, a branch of the Miami, where 
McArthur had built a stockade which he named Fort Findlay. Ten 
days had thus been oceupied in advancing only twenty-seven miles, but 
it was anticipated that the road built from Fort McArthur would greatly 
facilitate the conveyance of supplies in future. At Fort Findlay, on 

‘Brown, N. W. Campaign, 9; Walker’s Journal, pp. 46-8; Magazine of 
Western History, October, 1885. 
*Captain J. B. Glegg to Sir George Prevost, 11th Nov., 1812, Can. Ar-~- 
chives; Hull to Eustis, 24th June, 1812, Can. Archives, C, 675, p. 162. 
3 Hull to Eustis, Can. Archives, C 676, p. 165. 
