I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your
    excellency’s dispatch, dated the 11th ultimo, with its
    enclosures.

My first care, on my arrival in this province, was to direct the officers of the Indian department at Amherstburg to exert their whole influence with the Indians to prevent the attack which I understood a few tribes meditated against the American frontier.  But their efforts proved fruitless, as such was the infatuation of the Indians, that they refused to listen to advice; and they are now so deeply engaged, that I despair of being able to withdraw them from the contest in time to avert their destruction.  A high degree of fanaticism, which had been for years working in their minds, has led to the present event.

Major-General Brock to Lieut.-General Sir G. Prevost.

    YORK, December 11, 1811.

I had the honor yesterday of receiving your excellency’s letter of the 1st ultimo, stating your intention of establishing depots of small arms, accoutrements and ammunition, at the different posts in Upper Canada.

Since the settlement of the province, several hundred stands have been at different times issued to the militia, and I have given directions for collecting them, but in all probability great deficiencies will be found; indeed, it has already been ascertained that those delivered in 1795 by the late Lieut.-General Simcoe are wholly lost to the service.  To obviate for the future such an extensive waste, I propose fixing upon proper places at each post, wherein the arms may be deposited after the militia have exercised; and I have to request your excellency’s permission to direct the field train department to attend to their preservation, and keep them in a state of repair, in the same manner as those remaining in store.  The expense cannot be great, and in all such cases the infant state of the country obliges the militia to have recourse to the military.

I have recently had occasion to report for your excellency’s information, the total want of stores at this post, beyond those immediately necessary for the commissariat.  I shall consequently be much at a loss to find accommodation for the 2,329 French muskets which your excellency has directed to be sent here; and as the only magazine is a small wooden shed, not sixty yards from the king’s house, which is rendered dangerous from the quantity of powder it already contains, I cannot but feel a repugnance to lodge the additional 13,140 ball cartridges intended for this post in a place so evidently insecure.  But as these arrangements cannot conveniently take place until the opening of the navigation, there will be sufficient time to contrive the best means to meet your excellency’s wishes.

Colonel Baynes to Major-General Brock.

    QUEBEC, December 12, 1811.

    [OFFICIAL]