The British force was very small when Hampton began his
slow advance; but 'Red George' Macdonell marched to help
it just in time. Macdonell was commanding a crack corps
of French Canadians, all picked from the best 'Select
Embodied Militia,' and now, at the end of six months of
extra service, as good as a battalion of regulars. He
had hurried to Kingston when Wilkinson had threatened it
from Sackett's Harbour. Now he was urgently needed at
Chateauguay. 'When can you start?' asked Prevost, who
was himself on the point of leaving Kingston for
Chateauguay. 'Directly the men have finished their dinners,
sir!' 'Then follow me as quickly as you can!' said Prevost
as he stepped on board his vessel. There were 210 miles
to go. A day was lost in collecting boats enough for this
sudden emergency. Another day was lost _en route_ by a
gale so terrific that even the French-Canadian voyageurs
were unable to face it. The rapids, where so many of
Amherst's men had been drowned in 1760, were at their
very worst; and the final forty miles had to be made
overland by marching all night through dense forest and
along a particularly difficult trail. Yet Macdonell got
into touch with de Salaberry long before Prevost, to whom
he had the satisfaction of reporting later in the day:
'All correct and present, sir; not one man missing!'

The advanced British forces under de Salaberry were now,
on October 25, the eve of battle, occupying the left, or
north, bank of the Chateauguay, fifteen miles south of
the Cascade Rapids of the St Lawrence, twenty-five miles
south-west of Caughnawaga, and thirty-five miles south-west
of Montreal. Immediately in rear of these men under de
Salaberry stood Macdonell's command; while, in more
distant support, nearer to Montreal, stood various posts
under General de Watteville, with whom Prevost spent that
night and most of the 26th, the day on which the battle
was fought.

As Hampton came on with his cumbrous American thousands
de Salaberry felt justifiable confidence in his own
well-disciplined French-Canadian hundreds. He and his
brothers were officers in the Imperial Army. His Voltigeurs
were regulars. The supporting Fencibles were also regulars,
and of ten years' standing. Macdonell's men were practically
regulars. The so-called 'Select Militia' present had been
permanently embodied for eighteen months; and the only
real militiamen on the scene of action, most of whom
never came under fire at all, had