48 . THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Just before the close of the action, a canoe from the island brought 

 a message to Major Taylor, who had joined one of the parties on the 

 mainland, which contained the alarming but entirely false informa- 

 tion that several other hostile vessels were about to enter the river, 

 attended by a land force estimated at three thousand men. Leaving 

 orders for the boats to take possession of the prizes and bring them 

 off if possible, Taylor hastened back to the island to complete his 

 preparations for defence. 1 



As soon as information of this entirely unexpected success, reached 

 Major General de Rottenburg at his headquarters in Montreal, he 

 requested the senior naval officer at Quebec to lend sixty seamen 

 with the necessary officers to command them for a few days to man 

 the captured sloops for a short cruise in the hope of taking or destroy- 

 ing the American armed vessels and merchant shipping on Lake 

 Champlain. He urged that this should be done at once with the utmost 

 secrecy and proposed that the officers should travel in plain clothes 

 and the men be told that they were on the way to join the squadron 

 on Lake Ontario. Secrecy and rapidity of action were essential to 

 complete success and success would enable him to despatch troops 

 to any part of Lake Champlain. Captain Russell of H. M.S. .Cygnet 

 was then the senior naval officer at Quebec and he readily agreed 

 to comply with the proviso that an embargo should be laid on all 

 merchant vessels in that port from the 10th July until further orders 

 to prevent them from attempting to sail without a convoy. Few 

 of them would be ready to sail before the day named which had been 

 positively fixed as the date of departure for the fleet under his pro- 

 tection and feeling certain that trade would not greatly suffer by this 

 delay, General Glasgow recommended the imposition of this embargo 

 by de Rottenburg who was acting as administrator of civil affairs dur- 

 ing the absence of the Governor General in Upper Canada. Russell 

 instantly detailed five officers and thirty seamen to whom one officer 

 and seventy seamen were added by Captain Francis Kempt, who 

 was in charge of a small fleet of transports lying in the river. Russell 

 and Kempt both showed their zeal by volunteering for the expedi- 

 tion and left by the first steamboat for Montreal to complete the 

 necessary arrangements. 2 



De Rottenburg immediately proclaimed an embargo for one 

 month but having been transferred to the command of the troops 

 in Upper Canada he was obliged to leave Montreal before the seamen 

 arrived. He was succeeded by Major General Sheaffe who appointed 



'Taylor to Major General Stovin, June 3; Prévost to Bathurst, June 7; Mac- 

 donough to the Secretary of the Navy, July 22. 

 9 Glasgow to de Rottenburg, June 7. 



