and, being
actively engaged in the landing at Fort George; and the same evening,
May 27, he left for Black Rock to hasten the departure. The process
involved great physical labor, the several vessels having to be
dragged by oxen against the current of the Niagara, here setting
heavily toward the falls. It was not until June 12 that they were all
above the rapids, and even this could not have been accomplished but
for soldiers furnished by Dearborn.[56] The circumstance shows how
hopeless the undertaking would have been if the enemy had remained in
Fort Erie. Nor was this the only peril in their path. Barclay, with
commendable promptitude, had taken the lake in superior force very
shortly after his arrival at Amherstburg, and about June 15 appeared
off Erie [Presqu' Isle]. Having reconnoitred the place, he cruised
between it and Black Rock, to intercept the expected division; but the
small vessels, coasting the beach, passed their adversary unseen in a
fog,[57] and on June 18 reached the port. As Chauncey had reported on
May 29 that the two brigs building there were launched, affairs on
that lake began to wear a promising aspect. The Lakes station as a
whole, however, was still very short of men; and the commodore added
that if none arrived before his approaching return to Sackett's, he
would have to lay up the Ontario fleet to man that upon Erie.

To do this would have been to abandon to the enemy the very important
link in the communications, upon which chiefly depended the
re-enforcement and supplies for both armies on the Niagara peninsula.
The inherent viciousness of the plan upon which the American
operations were proceeding was now quickly evident. At the very moment
of the attack upon Fort George, a threatening but irresolute movement
against Sackett's was undertaken by Prevost, with the co-operation of
Yeo, by whom the attempt is described as a diversion, in consequence
of the enemy's attack upon Fort George. Had the place fallen, Chauncey
would have lost the ship then building, on which he was counting to
control the water; he would have had nowhere to rest his foot except
his own quarter-deck, and no means to repair his fleet or build the
new vessels continually needed to maintain superiority. The case of
Yeo dispossessed of Kingston would have been similar, but worse; for
land transport in the United States was much better than in Canada.
The issue of the war, as regarded the lakes and the Northwestern
terri