men in hot pursuit.  The American general brought him to bay at Moraviantown, and in the frozen swamps the dispirited British, having lost all confidence in their fleeing commander, surrendered or escaped.  It was here that the gallant and high-minded Tecumseh met his death, under distressing circumstances.  The story was circulated that, mortified at Procter’s proposed flight, the Shawanese chief was only restrained from shooting that officer by the interference of Colonel Elliott.  For his conduct and the unexplained disaster at Moraviantown, Procter was court-martialed, severely condemned, and suspended from his command for six months.

[Illustration:  TAKING OF NIAGARA, MAY 27TH, 1813.  From an old Print]

The defeat of Procter was counterbalanced, however, by Colonel de Salaberry’s dramatic victory over General Hampton.  With 350 French Canadian Voltigeurs he hypnotized 3,500 United States troops at Chateauguay.  When the fight was hottest the gallant Frenchman ordered his buglers to sound the advance, an alarming fanfare, accompanied by discharges of musketry from various points of the surrounding forest, and the enemy, thinking he was about to be attacked and flanked by superior numbers, was seized with panic, stampeded, and never halted in his retreat until he had placed twenty-five miles of country between him and the “French devils.”  After this, occurred the historic battle of Chrysler’s Farm, on the St. Lawrence, when 2,000 U.S. regulars under General Boyd, with six field-guns, were routed, with a loss of 102 killed and 237 wounded, by a force composed of 380 regulars, militia and Indians, under Colonel Morrison, and driven back into American territory.

In the second week of December, General McClure evacuated Fort George, but before doing so burned 149 of the public buildings and private houses in Newark and Queenston, by order of John Armstrong, U.S.  Secretary of War, compelling 400 women and children to seek shelter in the woods, with the thermometer ranging around zero.  Even Lossing, the American historian, condemned this as “a wanton act, contrary to the usages of war, and leaving a stain upon the American character.”  The outrage brought its own punishment within the week.  Colonel Murray, with 550 soldiers, captured the United States Fort Niagara, killing sixty-five men and taking 344 prisoners, and before the close of the year, with his heart on fire, the British general, Riall, crossed the river with 500 Indians and sacked Lewiston, Youngstown, Tuscarora and Manchester, only desisting from his excusable incendiarism when he had burned Buffalo and laid Black Rock in ashes.  January 1st, 1814, was ushered in with the Cross of St. George floating over the battered ramparts of the American Fort Niagara.

Thus ended the year of our Lord 1813, for ever memorable in North American history as a twelve months of almost incessant warfare, famous for its records of conspicuous courage, much military incompetence, and great and lamentable carnage.  A year, notwithstanding its sheaf of blunders, that should be canonized by all true Canadians, for it was a year that emphasized in an astounding manner the pluck and bull-dog tenacity of the Canadian militiaman, disclosing his deep love for country that resisted unto death the lawless attacks of a wanton invader.