ians which, in conjunction with military and
naval preponderance, would compel the enemy to forsake the upper
country altogether, and concentrate his forces about Kingston and
Montreal.

It is interesting to see an elaborate piece of serious reasoning
gradually culminate in a _reductio ad absurdum_; and Chauncey's
reasoning ends in a military absurdity. The importance of Kingston is
conceded by him, and the probability of capturing it at the first is
admitted. Thereupon follows a long project of operation, which ends in
compelling the enemy to concentrate all his strength at the very
points--Kingston and Montreal--which it is most important for the
Americans to gain; away from which, therefore, they should seek to
keep the enemy, and not to drive him in upon them. This comes from the
bias of the Government, and of the particular officer, regarding the
Northwestern territory as the means whereby success was to be
accomplished instead of merely the end to be attained. To make the
Western territory and control of the Indians the objects of the
campaign was a political and military motive perfectly allowable, and
probably, in view of recent history, extremely necessary; but to make
these things the objective of operations was to invert the order of
proceedings, as one who, desiring to fell a tree, should procure a
ladder and begin cutting off the outermost branches, instead of
striking at the trunk by the ground.

Eighteen months later Chauncey wrote some very wise words in this
spirit. "It has always been my opinion that the best means to conquer
Canada was to cut off supplies from Lower to Upper by taking and
maintaining some position on the St. Lawrence. That would be killing
the tree by girdling; the branches, dependent on ordinary supplies,
die of necessity. But it is now attempted to kill the tree by lopping
off branches" [he is speaking of the Niagara campaign of 1814]; "the
body becomes invigorated by reducing the demands on its
resources."[48] By this time Chauncey had been chastened by
experience. He had seen his anticipated glory reaped on Lake Erie by
his junior. He had seen the control of Ontario contested, and finally
wrung from him, by vessels built at Kingston, the place which he had
failed to take when he thought it possible. He had been blockaded
during critical months by a superior squadron; and at the moment of
writing, November 5, 1814, Sir James Yeo was moving, irresistible,
back and forth over the