[ CRUIKSHANK] GENERAL HULL’S INVASION OF CANADA IN 1812 231 
“Such must inevitably be the consequence of our present inert 
and neutral proceedings in regard to them. It ill becomes me to deter- 
mine how long true policy requires that the restrictions now imposed 
upon the Indian Department ought to continue, but this I will venture 
to assert that each day the officers are restrained from interfering in the 
concérns of the Indians, each time they advise peace and withhold the 
accustomed supply of ammunition, their influence will diminish till 
at last they lose it altogether. It will then become a question whether 
that country can be maintained.”t This remonstrance was, of course, 
disregarded as the Governor-General was acting upon instructions from 
the Colonial Office Brock, however, continued to form plans for 
offensive operations, and proposed with that view to send the whole of 
the 41st Regiment and a detachment of artillery with a mortar battery 
to Amherstburg as soon as the arrival of another battalion of regular 
troops from Lower Canada would permit. Other schemes for the protec- 
tion of the western frontier of Upper Canada which occupied his active 
mind at this time, but which he was unable to carry into effect, con- 
templated the construction of a battery to protect the anchorage at 
Long Point, the fortification of the harbour of Amherstburg and the 
equipment of a flotilla of gunboats upon Lake Erie. The active co- 
operation of the Indians, he remarked, must necessarily be attended by 
a large expenditure for arms, clothing and provisions.* 
Colonel St. George’s first care was to accumulate a sufficient supply 
of provisions for the maintenance of a considerable force. For this 
purpose he engaged confidential agents to purchase on both sides of the 
river with but moderate success, as there was great scarcity of cattle 
and grain of all kinds, due to a prolonged drought and premature frost 
the year before.* 
In ‘April the flank companies of the Essex regiments of militia 
were organized and began drilling. The commandant at Detroit 
responded by authorizing the enlistment of a troop of volunteer cavalry 
and a company of infantry, and the construction of a battery armed 
with three heavy guns on the river bank opposite Sandwich. Early 
in May a report reached St. George that twelve hundred militia were 
assembling at Urbana and a thousand regulars at Cincinnati, which 
seemed so important that he despatched a special messenger to inform 

1Brock to Prevost, 25th February, 1812, Can. Arch., C 676, p. 92. 
2Lord Liverpool to Prevost, 28th July, 1811. 
3 Memorandum by Brock to Prevost, Can. Arch., C 728, p. 68. 
4St. George to Glegg, 9th and 10th of March, 1812, Can. Arch. C 11%, 
pp. 62-4. 
