quested him to send "two or three months' supply
by the safest route in a direction to the proposed scene of
action."[117] He also instructed him to join the advance at St. Regis,
opposite Cornwall, the point which had now been reached. As the two
bodies were co-operating, and Wilkinson was senior, these instructions
had the force of orders. In his reply, dated November 8,[118] Hampton
said, "The idea of meeting at St. Regis was most pleasing, until I
came to the disclosure of the amount of your supplies of provision."
Actually, the disclosure about the supplies preceded in the letter the
appointment to meet at St. Regis, which was the last subject
mentioned. "It would be impossible," Hampton continued, "for me to
bring more than each man could carry on his back; and when I reflected
that, in throwing myself upon your scanty means, I should be weakening
you in your most vulnerable point, I did not hesitate to adopt the
opinion that by throwing myself back upon my main depot [Plattsburg],
where all means of transportation had gone, and falling upon the
enemy's flank, and straining every effort to open a communication from
Plattsburg to ... the St. Lawrence, I should more effectually
contribute to your success than by the junction at St. Regis."

Hampton then retired to Plattsburg, in the direction opposite from St.
Regis. Wilkinson, upon receiving his letter, held a council of war and
decided that "the attack on Montreal should be abandoned for the
present season." The army accordingly crossed to the American side and
went into winter quarters at French Mills, just within the New York
boundary; on the Salmon River, which enters the St. Lawrence thirteen
miles below St. Regis. Wilkinson was writing from there November 17,
twelve days after he started from French Creek to capture Montreal.
Thus two divisions, of eight thousand and four thousand respectively,
both fell back helplessly, when within a few days of a junction which
the enemy could not have prevented, even though he might successfully
have opposed their joint attack upon Montreal.

It is a delicate matter to judge the discretion of a general officer
in Hampton's position; but the fact remains, as to provisions, that he
was in a country where, by his own statement of a month before, "we
have, and can have, an unlimited supply of good beef cattle."[119] A
British commissary at Prescott wrote two months later, January 5,
1814, "Our supplies for sixteen hundred men