n the 25th of the same month this period of suspense
was terminated by the arrival of a special messenger employed by Mr.
Astor and other American citizens interested in the Northwest fur trade,
to convey the earliest possible information of war to Colonel Thomas
Clark, of Queenston, who immediately reported his intelligence to the
commandant of Fort Erie. The messenger, one Vosburg, of Albany, had
travelled with relays of horses at such speed that he outrode the
official courier bearing despatches to Fort Niagara by fully
twenty-four hours. On his return he was arrested at Canandaigua, and
held to bail together with some of his employers, but it does not appear
that they were ever brought to trial.

Lieut. Gansevoort and a sergeant in the United States Artillery, who
happened to be on the Canadian side were made prisoners, and the ferry
boats plying across the river at Queenston and Fort Erie, were seized by
the British troops at those places. The people of Buffalo received their
first intimation of the declaration of war by witnessing the capture of
a merchant schooner off the harbor by boats from Fort Erie.

The flank companies of militia marched immediately to the frontier, and
were distributed along the river in taverns and farm houses. On the
second day, General Brock arrived from York, with the intention of
making an attack on Fort Niagara. He had then at his disposal, 400 of
the 41st Regiment, and nearly 800 militia. Success was all but certain,
as the garrison was weak and inefficient. His instructions however, were
to act strictly on the defensive, and he abandoned this project in the
conviction that the garrison might be driven out at any time by a
vigorous cannonade. Rumors of his design seem to have reached General P.
B. Porter, who commanded the militia force on the other side, and he
made an urgent demand for reinforcements.

"The British on the opposite side are making the most active
preparations for defence," Benjamin Barton wrote from Lewiston on the
24th of June, "New troops are arriving from the Lower Province
constantly, and the quantity of military stores etc. that have arrived
within these few weeks is astonishing. Vast quantities of arms and
ammunition are passing up the country, no doubt to arm the Indians
around the Upper Lakes, (for they have not white men enough to make use
of such quantities as are passing). One-third of the militia of the
Upper Province are formed into companies called f