[cruikshank] FROM ISLE AUX NOIX TO CHATEAUGUAY 45 



reinforcement had arrived from England since the declaration of war 

 and one company had been transferred from Halifax to Quebec. The 

 drafts received had been barely sufficient to replace casualties and the 

 fortress batteries could only be manned with the assistance of men 

 from the line and militia while the field guns had not more than half the 

 necessary complement of regular artillerymen. During the past 

 summer the garrison of Quebec had included only one weak company 

 of about fifty men while at least three strong companies were needed to 

 man the batteries properly. The entire strength of the corps in both 

 provinces was 585 of all ranks besides a drivers' corps of 144. Six 

 brigades had been already organized for field service in the Montreal 

 District and Upper Canada for which alone 396 gunners and 294 

 drivers were required. Three additional companies were urgently 

 wanted besides detachments of artificers and gunner-drivers. 1 



It was accordingly decided to enlist two companies of provincial 

 artillery drivers, one in each province, to consist of two officers, ten 

 non-commissioned officers, and eighty gunners to serve for three years 

 or during the war, and one company of artificers in Upper Canada to 

 consist of one officer, three sergeants and fifty privates. 



On the part of the Americans, Lieut. Macdonough was actively 

 engaged during the winter and early spring in fitting out the vessels 

 in Basin Harbour near Shelburne. The quarter-decks were removed 

 from the sloops Eagle and Growler, thus permitting their armament 

 to be increased to eleven guns each, but he was precluded from appear- 

 ing on the lake for several weeks after the opening of navigation 

 from want of a sufficient number of trained seamen to man them. 

 At the end of January, he reported that he had only twenty seamen 

 and modestly asked for thirty more. "There are no men to get here," 

 he wrote, "and soldiers are miserable creatures on shipboard, and 

 I very much fear that unless I get the above (ordinary) seamen and 

 not soldiers, there will be a dark spot in our Navy." 2 These seamen 

 with a dozen shipwrights were sent on from New York about a month 

 later. Twenty iron 18 pounder carronades lately forming the arma- 

 ment of British sloop of war Alert taken by the frigate Essex, but 

 condemned as unfit for service, were forwarded from Boston to make 

 up his complement of guns. 



He had learned that many cattle and considerable quantities 

 of provision and grain for the supply of the British troops had been 

 taken into Canada from Vermont, generally crossing the boundary 



1 Major General Glasgow to Prévost, Dec. 18 and 22, 1912. 



2 Macdonough to the Secretary of the Navy, Jany. 22. 



