To get carpenters and materials to build, and seamen to man, were the chief difficulties of the Americans, the necessities of the seaboard conceding but partially the demands made upon it; but their vessels were built upon the shores of the Lake, and launched into navigable waters.

A large fleet of transports and ships of war in the St.
Lawrence supplied the British with adequate resources, which were utilized judiciously and energetically by Captain Douglas; but to get these to the Lake was a long and arduous task.

A great part of the Richelieu River was shoal, and obstructed by rapids.

The point where lake navigation began was at St.John's, to which the nearest approach, by a hundred-ton schooner, from the St.Lawrence, was Chambly, ten miles below.

Flat-boats and long-boats could be dragged up stream, but vessels of any size had to be transported by land; and the engineers found the roadbed too soft in places to bear the weight of a hundred tons.