70 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



detailed in Formation as to the extent of co-operation an invading force 

 might expect from the inhabitants. ISTo answer was returned, and the 

 years 1807 and 1808 elapsed without any message reaching him from 

 Canada, but indirect information confirmed him in the opinion that 

 " The Canadians hated the English and were sighing for French dom- 

 ination,"^ The encounter bot^veen the Leanâer and the Chesapeake, 

 stimiilat^'d his hopes that the United States might declare war against 

 Great Britain, and on the 18th of July, 1808, he reported to Talleyrand 

 that the President had said to him, " If the English do not give ns the 

 satisfaction we demand, we will take Canada, which wants to enter the 

 union, and when together with Canada we shall have the Floridas, we 

 shall no longer have any difficulties with our neighbours and it is the 

 only way of preventing thorn. '"- 



"\Mien Craig arrived at Quebec, he found the country practically 

 defenceless against a well directed invasion fnom the United States. 

 Nono of the military stations in Upper Canada were in a position to 

 resist an attack foi' two days together. "' The post's that do exist," he 

 wrote. " are Just calculated to insure the loss of such men as may be 

 put into them." The Provincial Marine, however, although weak in 

 seamen, was still superior on Takes Ontario and Erie, but in the spring 

 of 1808, the American govermnent began the construction of the brig 

 Oneida, of 18 guns at Oswego, to counterbalance Avhich Craig immedi- 

 ately directed a ship of 22 guns to be built at Kingston. On I^ake Cham- 

 plain there was not a single British vessel afloat, and he dared not under- 

 take the construction of any as there was no fort or harbour of any kind 

 to shelter them, nor had he any troops wliich he could detach for their 

 protection, while the flourishing state of the American settlements on 

 both shores of the lake would afford them every facility for interrupting 

 the work and destro3ang the dockyard. The fortifications ait Isle aux 

 Noix, and St. Johns had fallen into ruins, the fort at Chambly was 

 ba.dly situated and at best defensible only against musketry, while a 

 projected work at William TTenry (Sorol). had not yet been commenced. 

 The defences of Quebec were greatly out of repair. An English traveller 

 looking from the city at the Citadel upon Point Diamond could see 

 nothing Init " a heap of ruins and rubbish, a heterogeneous oollection of 

 log houses and broken-down wall."''' Craig made no effort to streugtlien 

 any of the frontier forts as he found it nece^sai-y to employ all the means 



1 Faucher de St. Maurice. Notes pour servir a I'histnire des officiers de la 

 marine et de l'armée Française qui ont fait la guerre de l'indépendance Améri- 

 caine. Appendix B. 



2 Henry Adams, History of the United States, Vol. IV, p. 36. 

 ' I^ambert, Travels in Canada, Vol. I, p. 41. 



