Perry had not enough sailors to defend his ships, and the regiment of Pennsylvania militia stationed at Erie to guard the naval base refused to do duty on shipboard after dark.

"I told the boys to go, Captain Perry," explained their worthless colonel, "but the boys won't go." Perry's lucky star saved him from disaster, however, and on the 2d of August he undertook the perilous and awkward labor of floating his larger vessels over the shallow bar of the harbor at Erie.

Barclay's blockading force had vanished.

For Perry it was then or never.

At any moment the enemy's topsails might reappear, and the American ships would be caught in a situation wholly defenseless.