Passing by such relatively unimportant affairs as a successful attack on Black Rock, near Buffalo, by Colonel Bisshopp, and a second attack on York by Chauncey, who took some prisoners and a quantity of stores, we have now to state other facts in the {328} history of the campaign of 1813 which compensated Canada for Procter's disasters in the west. The Americans had decided to make an attack on Montreal by two forces--one coming by the St. Lawrence and the other by Lake Champlain--which were to form a junction at Chateauguay on Lake St. Louis. General Wilkinson, with eight thousand men, descended the river from Sackett's Harbour, landed below Prescott, and then proceeded towards Cornwall. Some two thousand five hundred men, under Colonel Boyd, protected the rear of the main body, and was compelled to fight a much inferior force, under Colonel Morrison, on Chrystler's farm, near what is now known as Cook's Point on the north bank of the St. Lawrence. The Americans gave way in all directions, and sustained a heavy loss. Boyd rejoined Wilkinson at the foot of the Long Sault rapids, in the neighbourhood of the present town of Cornwall, and here the news arrived that General Hampton had received a serious repulse. Hampton, leading an army of probably seven thousand men, had been routed near the junction of the Chateauguay and Outarde rivers by an insignificant force of Canadian Fencibles and Voltigeurs under Colonel de Salaberry, a French Canadian in the English military service, with the aid of Colonel McDonnell, in command of seven companies of Lower Canadian militia. These combined forces did not exceed nine hundred men, all French Canadians, with the exception of Colonel McDonnell and several other officers. Three hundred French Canadian Voltigeurs and Fencibles formed the front {329} of the line, and when the former gave way to the onslaught of the four thousand men who advanced against them Salaberry held his ground with a bugler, a mere lad, and made him sound lustily. Colonel McDonnell, with a remarkably keen understanding of the situation, immediately ordered his buglers to play, and to continue doing so while they scattered in the woods. As the woods echoed {330} to the call of the bugles, to the shouts of the soldiers, and to the yells of the Indians, the American force halted as if they were paralysed. Then, believing from the noises that filled the forest in every direction that they were to be attacked in front and rear by an overwhelming force, they broke and fled tumultuously. Salaberry and the Canadians had won a victory that has only a few parallels in warlike annals. Hampton retreated as rapidly as possible to Plattsburg, while Wilkinson found his way to Salmon River. These two victories of Chrystler's farm and Chateauguay were won almost entirely by Canadian prowess and skill, and must be always mentioned among the glorious episodes of Canadian history. [Illustration: Colonel De Salaberry.]