98 THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



adopt, a plan for encouraging desertion among the troops encamped 

 at the French Mills who were unquestionably extremely dissatisfied 

 and wretched. Deserters who had recently come in reported that 

 all the soldiers had seven months' pay due them and many were only 

 deterred from leaving by the hope of receiving these arrears. They 

 were still in tents waiting for lumber to arrive for the construction 

 of huts, and being unprovided with any kind of winter clothing, 

 their sufferings were great. Handbills were accordingly prepared and 

 circulated in the camp or posted in the immediate vicinity, offering 

 payment of five months' arrears to all deserters who would report 

 at the British outposts. A trail was blazed through the woods to 

 a secluded landing place on the St. Lawrence, where a supply of provi- 

 sions was deposited and a boat kept in readiness to ferry them over. 1 

 This scheme was attended with some success and the number of de- 

 serters, who came in, materially increased. Wilkinson sent off his 

 dragoons to winter at Greenbush and Pittsfield and thus considerably 

 diminished the quantity of supplies required. His force which num- 

 bered quite nine thousand when it sailed from Sackett's Harbour 

 was reduced by deaths, desertions, discharges and sickness to less 

 than six thousand effectives at the end of November. His flotilla, 

 consisting of two sloops, thirteen gunboats and upwards of one hun- 

 dred bateaux, and Durham boats ascended the narrow, sluggish 

 stream called Salmon River for about eight miles where these craft 

 were anchored or drawn up on shore under the protection of a large 

 blockhouse and several batteries armed with the heavy guns intended 

 for the siege of Montreal. Three separate encampments occupied 

 by five thousand men were formed within musket shot. The remainder 

 were quartered at Malone and the Four Corners. 



Mulcaster's proposal for a general attack having been rejected, 

 Midshipman John Harvie offered to attempt the destruction of some 

 of the largest boats with explosives. He was accordingly provided 

 with three carcasses and set out in a canoe on the night of December 1 , 

 accompanied by seaman George Barnet. Paddling silently up the 

 Salmon River, they succeeded in passing the American outposts 

 without being observed and Harvie had actually placed one of the 

 carcasses on board a gunboat when the cracking of the ice alarmed a 

 sentry. A guard boat was sent out and twice passed close to his canoe 

 without discovering it, but he was forced to abandon the attempt 

 and make his escape. 



Two days later a party of deserters came into the outpost at 

 Glengarry House. One of them; who declared that he was of English 



1 Scott to Prévost, Nov. 26; Prévost to Scott, Nov. 27; Major J. P. Fulton to 

 Prévost, Dec. 5; Handbill printed in Lossing's Field Book of the War of 1812, p. 658. 



