subject, regarding which I am without instructions.


_Colonel Brock to Lieut.-Colonel J.W. Gordon._

QUEBEC, Sept. 6, 1807.

It is impossible to view the late hostile measures of the
American government towards England, without considering a
rupture between the two countries as probable to happen.

I have in consequence been anxious that such precautionary
measures might be taken as the case seemed to justify; but his
honor the president has not judged it proper to adopt any
other step, than merely to order one-fifth of the militia,
which amounts to about 10,000 men, to hold itself in readiness
to march on the shortest notice.

The men thus selected for service being scattered along an
extensive line of four or five hundred miles, unarmed and
totally unacquainted with every thing military, without
officers capable of giving them instruction, considerable time
would naturally be required before the necessary degree of
order and discipline could be introduced among them. I
therefore very much doubt whether, in the event of actual war,
this force could assemble in time, and become useful.

Without considerable assistance from the militia, the few
regulars which might be spared from this garrison could avail
nothing against the force the Americans would suddenly