more anxious about his own communications to the south.
With no safe base in Canada, and no safe line of transport
by water from Lake Erie to the village of Detroit, he
decided to clear the road which ran north and south beside
the Detroit river. But this was now no easy task for his
undisciplined forces, as Colonel Procter was bent on
blocking the same road by sending troops and Indians
across the river. On August 5, the day Brock prorogued
his parliament at York, Tecumseh ambushed Hull's first
detachment of two hundred men at Brownstown, eighteen
miles south of Detroit. On the 7th Hull began to withdraw
his forces from the Canadian side. On the 8th he ordered
six hundred men to make a second attempt to clear the
southern road. But on the 9th these men were met at
Maguaga, only fourteen miles south of Detroit, by a mixed
force of British-regulars, militia, and Indians. The
superior numbers of the Americans enabled them to press
the British back at first. But, on the 10th, when the
British showed a firm front in a new position, the
Americans retired discouraged. Next day Hull withdrew
the last of his men from Canadian soil, exactly one month
after they had first set foot upon it. The following day
was spent in consulting his staff and trying to reorganize
his now unruly militia. On the evening of the 13th he
made his final effort to clear the one line left, by
sending out four hundred picked men under his two best
colonels, McArthur and Cass, who were ordered to make an
inland detour through the woods.

That same night Brock stepped ashore at Amherstburg.