208 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
present position, which, it is well known, the state of the country 
will only allow to be transported to them by water.’’! 
He urged Yeo in the strongest terms to despatch seamen to Lake 
Erie and forward supplies to York and Burlington. 
Finding that his prize schooners fromtheir dull-sailing were only 
an encumbrance whenever the enemy had the weather gage, Yeo 
sent them into Kingston to have their heavy guns transferred to the 
Beresford and remained outside the harbour for several days waiting 
for a favourable wind. “This unusual calm weather cannot last many 
days at this advanced season of the year,” he wrote, “All our pilots 
declare that they never remember such extraordinary continuation 
of calms.’ He assured the Governor-General that the squadron 
would be ready to perform any service deemed necessary for the trans- 
portation of men and stores but asked that such a request should be 
put into writing as without a written communication on the subject 
he did not feel justified in losing sight of the enemy’s squadron. 
He was furnished in consequence with written instructions in 
which Prevost remarked: 
“The Centre Division of the Upper Canada Army is placed in a 
situation very critical and one novel in the system of war, that of 
investing a force vastly superior in numbers within a strongly in- 
trenched position. It was adopted and has been maintained from 
a confident expectation that with the squadron under your command 
a combined attack ere this could have been effected on the enemy 
at Fort George with every prospect of success. To the local disad- 
vantage of the position occupied by our army have been added disease 
and desertion to a degree calling for an immediate remedy. You 
are therefore required to proceed with the fleet under your command 
with the least possible delay to the head of the lake, affording sufficient 
convoy to the small vessels containing those stores and supplies of 
which the army is in the most pressing want. Upon your arrival 
near the headquarters of the Centre Division you will consult with 
Major-General de Rottenburg, who will unite in his person the civil 
and military commands in Upper Canada upon my withdrawing from 
the Province, upon the eligibility of a combined attack for the purpose 
of dislodging the enemy from Fort George by a rapid forward move- 
ment of the army, bringing up in battery at the same time the heavy 
ordnance, mortars, and howitzers now embarked. This attack must 
be supported by the countenance of your squadron and the fire of such 
vessels as are armed with a description of ordnance favourable to it. 
Should this attempt appear to you to be attended with too great 

1 Prevost to Yeo, Sept. 14. 
* Yeo to Prevost, Mouth of the Bay of Cante, Sept. 15. 
