He crossed on the 12th, and issued a proclamation to the Canadians. In this he told them that he came to do no injury to peaceable citizens, who might remain at their homes and pursue their usual occupations in security; that he neither asked nor needed their help, but would accept the services of such as might volunteer; and that no quarter would be given to any who adopted Indian modes of warfare or were found fighting in company with the savages who were accustomed to scalp prisoners and murder non-combatants. After the campaign had resulted disastrously, General Hull was censured and ridiculed for this proclamation; but a copy had been transmitted to the Secretary of War, and approved by him; and indeed, if a proclamation was to be issued, it is difficult to find any serious fault with Hull's. The error was in issuing any at all--a {030}thing which a general seldom does with any good effect. Hull fortified his camp on the east side of the river, and while waiting for his artillery sent out reconnoitring parties toward Fort Malden, and detachments to bring in supplies. As his troops grew impatient, he called a council of war, explained the situation to his officers, and offered to lead them in an attempt to carry the fort by storm, without waiting for artillery, if they thought their men could be relied upon for such an enterprise. Colonel Miller answered that his regiment of regulars could be depended upon for anything they might be ordered to do; but the three militia colonels very wisely answered that raw militia could not be expected to storm a fortified place, unaided by artillery--one of the most hazardous of all military exploits. So it was decided to defer the attack, and in a few days came the news that on the declaration of war, a force of over six hundred--British and Indians--had promptly moved against the American post at Michilimackinac--on the rocky little island of Mackinaw, commanding the strait between Lake Huron and Lake Michigan--and the garrison of sixty-one officers and men capitulated on the 16th of July. This disaster to the Americans roused the Indians to renewed hostility against them, while it propor{031}tionately disheartened Hull, and seems to have been the first step in the breaking down of his courage. After a few skirmishes, he recrossed to Detroit on the 7th of August. Meanwhile the British Colonel Proctor had arrived at Malden with reënforcements, and on Hull's withdrawal to Detroit he threw a force across the river to intercept his supplies. This force consisted of a small number of British regulars and a considerable number of Indians commanded by the famous Tecumseh.