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On November 5 Nelson sent Côté with a force of four or five hundred men south to Rouse's Point, on the boundary-line, to secure more arms and ammunition from the American sympathizers. On his way south Côté encountered a picket of a company of loyalist volunteers stationed at Lacolle, and drove it in. On his return journey, however, he met with greater opposition.
On the 20th of November, before day, an attack was made by fourteen hundred of the enemy on the British out-post at Lacolle, near Rouse's Point; but the guard, keeping up a sharp fire, withdrew, and the Americans, in the darkness and confusion, fired into each other's ranks, and fell back in disastrous and headlong retreat.
The company at Lacolle had been reinforced in the meantime by several companies of loyalist militia from Hemmingford. As the rebels appeared the loyalist militia attacked them; and after a brisk skirmish, which lasted from twenty to twenty-five minutes, drove them from the field.
He made a feint too, upon Burtonville, which he suffered a few grenadiers and some light infantry to check. He wanted possession of Lacolle town, and accordingly, early in the afternoon, he determined upon taking it by assault. The Americans got into the woods with the view of surrounding the blockhouse and of simultaneously assaulting it on all sides.
Despatches were immediately sent off by the officer in command of the stone mills at Lacolle, to Isle-aux-Noix for aid, and Captain Broke with a picquet of the 13th regiment, was sent to him. Major Handcock set about making such preparations as he could for the defence of his temporary block-house, or rather stone tower, at Lacolle. Wilkinson did not immediately advance, but halted to reconnoitre.
In the following year the campaign commenced by the advance of a large force of American troops under General Wilkinson into Lower Canada, but they did not get beyond Lacolle Mill, not far from Isle aux Noix on the Richelieu, where they met with a most determined resistance from the little garrison under Colonel Handcock.
General Wilkinson, who had removed his headquarters from Salmon River to Plattsburg, advanced with five thousand men from the latter place, crossed the Canadian frontier at Odelltown, and pushed on to Lacolle, about ten miles from the border.
The Canadian Militia, Voltigeurs, Chasseurs, Drivers, Voyageurs, Dorchester Dragoons, and the Battalion Militia, in both provinces, were, by a General Order, issued on the 1st of March, to be disbanded on the 24th of that month, not a little proud of Detroit and the River Raisin exploits, of the battles of Queenston, Stoney Creek, Chateauguay, Chrystler's Farm, Lacolle, and Lundy's Lane, and of the capture of Michillimackinac, Ogdensburgh, Oswego, and Niagara, by assault.
Thus repulsed the gallant Americans thought of battering a breach in the tower of Lacolle, with the aid of a naked 12-pounder, or battering gun, unprotected by an earthwork. The result was that the artillerymen being within musket range, were picked off with great facility, and with such marvellous rapidity, that it was no easy matter for the enemy to load and fire.
The third and last year of the war was distinguished by the capture of Oswego and Prairie-des-Chiens by British expeditions; the repulse of a large force of the invaders at Lacolle Mills in Lower Canada; the surrender of Fort Erie to the enemy, the defeat of General Riall at Street's or Usher's Creek in the Niagara district, the hotly contested battle won at Lundy's Lane by Drummond, and the ignominious retreat from Plattsburg of Sir George Prevost, in command of a splendid force of peninsular veterans, after the defeat of Commodore Downey's fleet on Lake Champlain.
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