appointments in the field.

The Americans lost over two hundred men by an explosion
in a British battery at York just as Sheaffe was marching
off. Forty British had also been blown up in one of the
forts a little while before. Sheaffe appears to have been
a slack inspector of powder-magazines. But the Americans,
who naturally suspected other things than slack inspection,
thought a mine had been sprung on them after the fight
was over. They consequently swore revenge, burnt the
parliament buildings, looted several private houses, and
carried off books from the public library as well as
plate from the church. Chauncey, much to his credit,
afterwards sent back all the books and plate he could
recover.

Exactly a month later, on May 27, Chauncey and Dearborn
appeared off Fort George, after a run back to Sackett's
Harbour in the meantime. Vincent, Sheaffe's successor in
charge of Upper Canada, had only a thousand regulars and
four hundred militia there. Dearborn had more than four
times as many men; and Perry, soon to become famous on
Lake Erie, managed the naval part of landing them. The
American men-of-war brought the long, low, flat ground
of Mississauga Point under an irresistible cross-fire
while three thousand troops were landing on the beach
below the covering bluffs. No support could be given to
the opposing British force by the fire of Fort George,
as the village of Newark intervened. So Vincent had to
fight it out in the open. On being threatened with