364 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [ VoL. VI. 
On November sth he wrote that the Government of the United States 
had sent the crew of the frigate John Adams to man its vessels, and 
begged for officers and crews for the British ships. On the 21st of the 
same month he announced that the Americans were actually in com- 
mand of Lake Ontario, and had menaced Kingston. He predicted the 
entire loss of that lake next year if he was not powerfully assisted with 
men and stores. But such was the uncertainty of the mail service in the 
winter season that this letter did not reach Lord Bathurst until March 
3rd, 1813, one hundred and one days after it was written. At the same 
time, fearing that assistance from Great Britain might arrive too late, 
Prevost applied to Sir John B. Warren, commanding on the Halifax 
station, for at least a sufficient number of officers and men to navigate 
the ships on the lakes. In January, 1813, Captain Hall went to Quebec 
to enlist seamen for Lake Erie. He met with little success, owing 
largely to the high rate of wages then being paid in the merchant ser- 
vice, and the men he obtained were generally of an unsatisfactory des- 
cription, being incompetent and dissipated. At the same time instruc- 
tions were given to General Procter to build at Amherstburg a ship 
intended to carry fourteen twelve-pound carronades, and four long nines 
in bridle ports, in the bow and stern, and two decked gunboats, to be 
armed each with a long eighteen. With the exception of timber, which 
could be procured close at hand, the principal part of the materials— 
nails, bolts, pulleys, deadeyes, lead, copper, glass, paint, resin, cordage 
and_sails would have to be sent up from Montreal or Quebec with the 
shipwrights. 
“There are not shipwrights in this province to do half the work, 
Captain Gray reported on December 3rd, 1812. ‘“ It might, under those 
circumstances, be advisable to engage all the master shipwrights in 
Lower Canada with their men, and send them up to work by contract or 
otherwise.” 
There was even greater difficulty in providing guns and ordnance 
stores. Six carronades destined for the Queen Charlotte had been taken 
to arm gunboats on the Sorel and St. Lawrence. There were none in 
the arsenals at Quebec or Halifax. Prevost quite unexpectedly suc- 
ceeded in purchasing eighteen old carronades from a Quebec merchant, 
but these were appropriated forthwith for the armament of the ships at 
Kingston, and those needed for Lake Erie had then to be requisitioned 
from England. By the middle of March only eighty seamen of the most 
wretched quality had entered for service on both lakes, and the Governor- 
General was obliged to forward a most urgent requisition to the Colonial 
Office for 445 seamen for Lake Ontario and 170 for Lake Erie. But 
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