[cruikshank] from ISLE AUX NOIX TO CHATEAUGUAY 149 



The energetic efforts of Governor Tompkins of the State of New 

 York to organise and equip the militia of the region bordering on Lake 

 Ontario and the St. Lawrence from Oswego to St. Regis were most ably 

 seconded by Brigadier Jacob Brown, the officer commanding that 

 military district. Born in Pennsylvania and educated as a Quaker, 

 Brown had published some clever articles on current events in a news- 

 paper, while employed in teaching school in the city of New York, 

 which attracted the attention of Alexander Hamilton who made him 

 his private secretary during the brief war with France in 1798. Re- 

 moving soon after with his father to the new settlements near the 

 frontier, they acquired a large tract of land and founded the village of 

 Brownsville some thirty miles from Sackett's Harbour. During the 

 embargo it was more than suspected that he was extensively engaged 

 in the profitable business of smuggling merchandise from Canada in 

 which he gained an intimate knowledge of men and places on both 

 sides of the line which proved of inestimable service to him afterwards. 

 Ambitious, shrewd and energetic, he devoted himself to the duties of his 

 military command with remarkable zeal.''' 



Oswego, Sackett's Harbour, Cape Vincent, Ogdensburg and 

 Hamilton were designated as points to be strongly occupied. The 

 population of the district exceeded thirty thousand but it was widely 

 scattered and the militia generally were reluctant to serve. All the 

 companies mustered were much below their authorised strength, while 

 several had less than half their complement. The destruction of two 

 small American merchant vessels by their captors in the Thousand 

 Islands spread an extraordinary panic and many families deserted their 

 homes to remove inland. Brown successfully counteracted this move- 

 ment by travelling from place to place and warning those who were 

 preparing to leave that they must not expect to return as the conquest 

 of Canada was a certainty and their desertion would be remembered 

 and sternly punished. Within two weeks after the declaration of war 

 became known, he had succeeded in assembling two thousand men 

 of whom one half were marched to Ogdensburg with instructions to 

 protect the vessels lying there to the last extremity. They were fairly 

 well supplied with small arms and had three small field guns but 

 possessed scarcely a semblance of training or discipline.! 



Woolsey who commanded U. S. brig Oneida, prudently remained 

 in port at Sackett's Harbour, where he busied himself with the con- 

 struction of batteries and the conversion of two merchant schooners 

 into gunboats. On July 19, a British squadron of four sail, including 



*Hildreth, History of the United States, Vol. VI, p. 355. 



t Tompkins to Brown, June 23, 30, July 7 and 12; Brown to Tompkins, June 

 25, 26, 29, July 2, 3, 7, 10 and 12. 



