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To the British agent at Amherstburg he declared that had he been on the spot there would have been no fighting at Tippecanoe. It is reasonable to suppose that in this case there would have been, at all events, no Indian attack; for Tecumseh was thoroughly in sympathy with the British plan, which was to unite and arm the natives, but to prevent a premature outbreak.
The brutal Procter, aware that the Indians would commit hideous outrages if left unrestrained, nevertheless returned to Amherstburg with his troops and his prisoners, leaving the American wounded to their fate. That night the savages came back to Frenchtown and massacred those hurt and helpless men, thirty in number.
The enemy had won this extraordinary success with five hundred white troops and about the same number of Indians, led by Colonel Procter, whom Brock had placed in command of the fort at Amherstburg. Procter's name is infamous in the annals of the war. The worst traditions of Indian atrocity, uncontrolled and even encouraged, cluster about his memory.
The dark, stormy close of November, 1854, found many vessels on Lake Erie, but the fortunes of one alone have special interest for us. About that time the schooner Conductor, owned by John McLeod, of the Provincial Parliament, a resident of Amherstburg, at the mouth of the Detroit River, entered the lake from that river, bound for Port Dalhousie, at the mouth of the Welland Canal.
Meantime, to strengthen the British Niagara frontier, all the men and ordnance that could now be spared from Amherstburg had been brought back by Brock to Fort Erie, which was on the lake of that name, at the upper end of the Niagara River.
If the Indians in the West were to be impressed with British supremacy for they were making a stand against 2,000 American soldiers on the banks of the Wabash, in Ohio, where eighteen years before they had been beaten by General Wayne at Miami then Amherstburg must be greatly strengthened and the Americans deterred from attack. How was Brock to obtain troops, and how were they to be equipped?
Our friends being all landed, there can be nothing further to detain us here, we will therefore make the best of our way back to Amherstburg in the morning," "Yes, Massa Geral," returned the negro, yawning and half raising his brawny form from his rude couch with one hand, while he rubbed his heavy eyes with the knuckles of the other.
His arrival at Amherstburg was about the 13th of August, so that until the morning of his meditated attack scarcely three days were occupied in preparations, including the march to Sandwich, a distance of eighteen miles. It is difficult to imagine that the English General could, in any way have anticipated so easy a conquest.
The result of the proceedings of the day, was a compromise of the views of the two parties; and it was decided, that although the defences of Amherstburg and Detroit should be destroyed, and those forts evacuated, a final stand should be made near the Moravian village, on the banks of the narrow river Thames, on the line of communication with the Niagara frontier.
Since his recent arrival, to assume the direction of the fleet, Commodore Barclay had had opportunities of seeing such of the chiefs as were then assembled at Amherstburg; but great as had been his admiration of several of these, he had been given to understand they fell far short, in every moral and physical advantage, of what their renowned leader would be found to possess, when, on his return from the expedition in which he was engaged, fitting opportunity should be had of bringing them in personal proximity.
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