self to the British
and vengeance was taken accordingly. General Drummond followed up the
occupancy of Fort George by an attack upon the American fort at
Niagara. On the night of the 18th of December, a detachment of the
royal artillery, the grenadier company of the 1st Royals, and the flank
companies of the 41st and 100th regiments, under Colonel Murray,
crossed the river Niagara, and were very quietly put on shore at the
Five Mile Meadows, the name of the landing place indicating the
distance from the fort. All was still. Every order was conveyed in a
whisper. Neither musket clattered nor sabre clinked. The 100th regiment
went off in two divisions, one under Captain Fawcett,[22] and the
other, under Lieutenant Dawson, stealthily. They seemed to be creeping
past the trees, with the softness of a tiger's tread. The wormlike
thread of men wound round picquet after picquet, and throttled the
sentries on the glacis, and at the gate. The hearts of the sentries
sank within them. They had hardly breath enough left, so
terror-stricken were they, to reveal the watch-word, or nerve enough to
point out the entrance to the fort. But the watch-word was obtained;
the entrance was pointed out; and the 100th regiment were inside of
Fort Niagara before a single drum had rolled or a bugle sounded. By the
time indeed that the garrison were alarmed the whole British force were
in the fort, and, after a show of resistance, the Americans
surrendered. Only one officer and five men on the part of the British
were killed and two officers and three men were wounded in this
adroitly managed assault. The enemy lost in killed two officers and
sixty-five men, and twelve rank and file were wounded. Three hundred
men were made prisoners. In this affair the colonel of the 100th
regiment, Hamilton, behaved with distinguished gallantry.

[22] A rather interesting anecdote is told of Captain Fawcett.
About the end of the war he had been wounded in the heel, and was
staying, in 1815, at Mrs. Matthew's boarding house, in Montreal.
At the table d'hote there was a raw-boned young English merchant,
who remarked that Fawcett, to have been wounded in the heel, must
have been running away. Fawcett's Irish blood rose to his
forehead, and on the spur of the moment he felled the thoughtless
Englishman with his crutch.

The rule of General Drummond in Upper Canada had auspiciously
commenced. This affair was not only