[CRUIKSHANK] COMMAND OF LAKE ONTARIO, 1812-1813 207 
vessels would be of no service and he might succeed in cutting some of 
them off.’”! 
Yeo has been censured somewhat inconsiderately by a recent 
writer fornot having substituted some of his long guns for carronades 
and thus remedied the disparity of force to some extent. Had this 
been practicable and expedient it is scarcely probable that so experi- 
enced a seaman would have failed to resort to such an obvious device. 
As Amherst Bay was little known to his pilots and reported to 
be full of shoals, Chauncey prudently declined to enter it but remained 
in observation until informed that Yeo had gone off to Kingston by 
another channel when a heavy gale forced him to take shelter in his 
own port. The sound of the prolonged cannonade in Genesee Bay 
had been heard distinctly at Sackett’s Harbour where the Secretary 
of War had arrived several days before for the purpose of supervising 
the concentration of troops there for a movement upon Kingston 
and ultimately Montreal. ‘‘The battle on the lake,”’ he wrote, “‘shall 
we have one? If Yeo fights and is beaten all will be well. If he does 
not fight the result may also be favorable.’ 
Immediately on his arrival in port Chauncey was directed to 
sail to Niagara and protect the troops coming from that quarter in 
their passage down the lake. He carried with him a letter to Wilkin- 
son in which the Secretary of War said : “Are 8,000 men competent 
to seize and hold a point on the St. Lawrence, which shall have the 
effect of severing Sir George’s line of communication? If a point be 
so seized will not, must not, Prevost press on to dislodge it with his 
whole force? He must, and what then? Kingston and the fleet 
and the new ship are abandoned. Other three thousand may pass the 
lake and demolish him.’ 
Sailing on the 18th, Chauncey discovered the British squadron 
near the False Ducks next day but proceeded up the lake without 
paying any attention to it, in the hope of drawing it in pursuit. Head 
winds prevented him from arriving off Niagara before the 24th. 
Prevost had become much alarmed at the critical position in 
which both the Right and Centre Divisions of troops in Upper Canada 
had been placed by the temporary ascendency obtained on Lakes 
Erie and Ontario by the enemy. 
“It is evidently the policy of the American commanders to pro- 
tract the final decision of the naval superiority from an expectation 
of depriving me of the means of forwarding those supplies which are 
requisite to the troops in advance to enable them to maintain their 

1 Chauncey to the Secretary of the Navy, Sept. 13. 
? Armstrong to Wilkinson, Sackett’s Harbour, Sept. 6. 
3 Armstrong to Wilkinson, Brownsville, Sept. 15. 
