[cruikshank] from ISLE AUX NOIX TO CHATEAUGUAY 151 



Both parties exerted themselves to the utmost during the suspen- 

 sion of hostilities to move troops and stores towards Niagara. In this 

 respect the British still possessed a decided advantage in being able 

 , to use sailing vessels while their adversaries were mainly restricted 

 to bateaux and row boats of little burden. The activity with which 

 reinforcements and supplies were being forwarded to Upper Canada 

 greatly impressed General Brown who had excellent opportunities 

 for observation and estimated that at least six hundred boats, averag- 

 ing five tons each, had passed up the St. Lawrence since the war began.* 



On the afternoon of the day the armistice was terminated, the 

 Royal George chased some small craft into the mouth of the Genesee, 

 thereby causing considerable alarm. On the 2nd of October her boats 

 actually entered that river and brought out as prizes the schooner Lady 

 Murray and a row boat employed as a revenue cutter. A brigade 

 of bateaux loaded with supplies for Fort Niagara, narrowly escaped. 

 During the rest of the season the navigation, all the British armed 

 vessels were actively employed in transporting troops, stores and 

 prisoners of war up and down the lake. 



Early in September, the garrison of Sackett's Harbour had been 

 reinforced by a detachment of 150 men from the newly organised 1st 

 United States Rifles, commanded by Captain Benjamin Forsyth, a 

 particularly ambitious and energetic officer, who soon after his arrival 

 planned a blow at the British line of communication between Montreal 

 and Kingston. Gananoqui was selected as the most vulnerable point 

 of attack. Forsyth marched by night to Cape Vincent where he em- 

 barked in row boats early on the morning of Sept. 21 and landed shortly 

 after daybreak two miles above the village, which was occupied by a 

 single weak company of the 2nd Regiment of Leeds Militia. Two 

 officers and a dozen men were absent with or without leave. Before 

 reaching th ^ place two dragoons were encountered on their way to 

 Kingston with despatches. One of them was taken but the other 

 escaped and alarmed an outpost which turned out promptly enough 

 and began firing. After a brief skirmish in which four men of the 

 outpost were wounded and Forsyth had one man killed and another 

 wounded, the remainder of the garrison retired across the creek and 

 the bridge was destroyed by the invaders. A storehouse or temporal y 

 barracks was burnt and Forsyth reported the capture of twelve 

 prisoners, four of whom were sick in hospital, and the destruction of 

 forty muskets. When this affair became known at Kingston, Lieut. 

 Colonel Robert Nichol, Quartei master General of militia for Upper 

 Canada, who happened to be there on his way to Montreal, volunteered 

 to lead a force to cut off the retreat of the raiders. In this he was 

 *Brown to Tompkins, Sept. 17; The War, 1812. 



