In the whole of Upper Canada there were but seven hundred and twenty men, and at Montreal, Three Rivers, and on the whole line of the Sorel the whole defensive force amounted to only thirteen hundred and thirty men, and the garrison of Quebec was so small, that no detachment could be made without great inconvenience and danger.

The fortifications of Isle aux Noix, then emphatically the key of central Canada, was without a garrison during nearly the whole of the first campaign.

Under these circumstances an American force of fifteen hundred or two thousand men marching rapidly from Albany, might readily have broken the enemy's line of defence, and cut off all Upper Canada from supplies and reinforcements from England by way of Quebec.

Let us see what course was pursued.
On the 1st of June an army of two thousand men was collected at Dayton, in Ohio, placed under the command of an imbecile old officer of the Revolution, and directed by Detroit against the Canadian Peninsula.

The dilatory march, absurd movements, and traitorous surrender of Hull's army to a British force of three hundred regulars and four hundred militia, are but too well known.