er like a pall, until finally dissipated by Perry's victory.

The danger to British control of the water, and thereby to the
maintenance of their position in the northwest, if the American fleet
now building should succeed in getting upon the lake, was perfectly
apparent, and made Erie a third and principal point of interest. At
the time of Perry's arrival, March 27, the place was entirely
defenceless, and without any organization for defence, although the
keels of the two brigs were laid, and the three gunboats well advanced
in construction. By a visit to Pittsburgh he obtained from an army
ordnance officer four small guns, with some muskets; and upon his
application the local commander of Pennsylvania militia stationed at
Erie five hundred men, who remained till the vessels crossed the bar.
Under this slender protection went on the arduous work of building and
equipping a squadron in what was substantially a wilderness, to which
most of the mechanics and material had to be brought half a thousand
miles from the seaboard, under the difficulties of transport in those
days. The rapid advance in the preparations aroused the disquietude of
the British, but Procter had not the enterprising temper to throw all
upon the hazard, for the sake of destroying an armament which, if
completed, might destroy him; while the British inferiority of force
on Lake Ontario and the Niagara peninsula, together with the movement
of Chauncey and Dearborn resulting in the capture of York, April 27,
effectually prevented intervention from that quarter in the affairs of
Lake Erie. At this time Procter made his first effort of the season,
directed against Fort Meigs, which he held besieged for over a
week,--from May 1 to May 9. Although unable to capture it, the
mismanagement of an American relief force enabled him to inflict a
very severe loss; a corps of eight hundred and sixty-six men being cut
to pieces or captured, only one hundred and seventy escaping. The
chief points of interest in this business are the demonstration of the
weakness of the American frontier,--the principal defence of which was
thus not merely braved but threatened,--and the effect of control of
the water. By it Procter brought over gunboats which ascended the
river, and guns of a weight not to be transported by land. The lake
also secured his communications.

After the failure before Meigs, Procter turned his attention more
seriously to the situation at Erie, and demanded