Ever since Brock had captured Detroit in 1812, General Procter, with twenty-five hundred Canadians, had been holding the western part of Ontario; and the defeat of the English at Fort George had placed him in a desperate position. His men had been without pay for months; their clothes were in tatters, and now, with the Americans in possession of Niagara region, there was danger of Procter's food supply being cut off. Procter himself had not been idle these six months. In fact, he had been too active for the good of his supplies. Space forbids a detailed account of the raids directed by him and carried out with the aid of Tecumseh, the great Shawnee chief. January of 1813 saw a detachment of Procter's men up Raisin River, west of Detroit, where they defeated General Winchester and captured nearly five hundred prisoners, to be set free on parole. Harrison, the American general, is on his way to Lake Erie to rescue Detroit. Procter hastens in May to meet him with one thousand Canadians and fifteen hundred Indians. The clash takes place at a barricade known as Fort Meigs on Maumee River, south of Lake Erie, when again, by the aid of Tecumseh, Procter captures four hundred and fifty prisoners. It was on this occasion that the Indians broke from control and tomahawked forty defenseless American prisoners. August sees Procter raiding Sandusky; but the Americans refuse to come out and battle, and the axes of the Canadians are too dull to cut down the ironwood pickets, and when at night Procter's bugles sound retreat, he has lost nearly one hundred men. At last, in September, the fleets being built for the Canadians at Amherstburg and for the Americans at Presqu' Isle are completed. Whichever side commands Lake Erie will control supplies; and though Captain Barclay, the Canadian, is short of men, Procter cannot afford to delay the contest for supremacy any longer. He orders Barclay to sail out and seek Commodore Perry, the American, for decisive battle. {364} On Barclay's boats are only such old land guns as had been captured from Detroit. His crews consist of lake sailors and a few soldiers, in all some three hundred and eighty-four men on six vessels. September 10, at midday, at Put-in-Bay, Barclay finds Perry's fleet of seven vessels with six hundred and fifty men. For two hours the furious cannonading could be heard all the way up to Amherstburg. Space forbids details of the fight so celebrated in the annals of the American navy. After broadsides that tore hulls clean of masts and decks, setting sails in flame and the waters seething in mountainous waves, the two fleets got within pistol shot of each other, and Perry's superior numbers won. One third of Barclay's officers were killed and one third of his men. The Canadian fleet on Lake Erie was literally exterminated before three in the afternoon. [Illustration: TWO VIEWS OF THE BATTLE ON LAKE ERIE (From prints published in 1815)]