nearly that number in all Canada;[43] but he was perhaps correct
in thinking that the provision for the offensive, which he had found
upon taking office a few weeks before, was insufficient for an advance
in that quarter.

Dearborn very soon discovered objections to proceeding against
Kingston, in his own estimates of the enemy's numbers, based upon
remarkable reports received from sources "entitled to full credit."
On March 3 he was satisfied that from six to eight thousand men had
been assembled there from Quebec, Montreal, and Upper Canada; while
the presence of Sir George Prevost, the Governor General, and
commander-in-chief in Canada, who had seized an opportunity to make a
hurried visit to Kingston to assure himself as to the progress of the
ships building, convinced the American general that an attack upon
Sackett's was contemplated.[44] From that time forward Dearborn
realized in his own person the process of making pictures to one's
self concerning a military situation, against which Napoleon uttered a
warning. Chauncey was more sceptical, although he could not very well
avoid attention to the reports brought in. He expresses himself as
believing that a considerable number of men had been assembled in
Kingston, but that their real object was to proceed against Harrison
in the Far West.[45]

There seems to have been no foundation for any of these alarms.
Prevost was a soldier of good reputation, but wanting in initiative,
audacity, and resolution, as the current war was to prove. His
presence at Kingston at this moment was simply one incident in a rapid
official visit to the upper military posts, extending as far as
Niagara, and accomplished in four weeks; for, leaving Quebec February
17, he was again writing from there on the 17th of March. As far as
can be deduced from his correspondence, four companies of regulars had
preceded him from Montreal to Kingston, and there may very well have
been a gathering of local forces for inspection or otherwise; but no
re-enforcements of regulars, other than that just mentioned, reached
Kingston from down the river before May. Dearborn never renounced his
belief in the meditated attack, though finally satisfied that it was
abandoned; and his positive reports as to the enemy's numbers wrung
from Armstrong acquiescence in a change of plan, by which York, and
not Kingston, should be the first object of the campaign.[46]

Chauncey, who had some sound military ideas, as his fi