The contest has now lasted for almost two years, and both sides are as far from decisive victory as when war was declared in June of 1812. Long since the embargo laws of France and England against neutral nations have been rescinded, and the American coast has suffered more from the blockade of this war than it ever did from the wars between France and England. The year 1814 opens with Napoleon defeated and England pouring aid across the Atlantic into Canada. Wilkinson's big army hovers inactive round Lake Champlain, and Prevost is afraid to weaken Montreal by forwarding aid to Drummond at Niagara. The British fleet blockades Sackett's Harbor, and the American fleet blockades Kingston. The Canadians raid Oswego on Lake Ontario for provisions. The Americans raid Port Dover on Lake Erie, leaving the country a blackened waste and Tom Talbot's Castle Malahide of logs a smoking ruin, with the determined aim of cutting off all supplies in Ontario. Drummond sends his troops scouring the country inland from Niagara for provisions. Military law is established for the seizure of cattle and grain, but for the latter as high a price is paid as $2.50 a bushel, and many a pioneer farmer back from York (Toronto) and Burlington (Hamilton) dates the foundation of his fortune from the famine prices paid for bread during the War of 1812. [Illustration: SIR GORDON DRUMMOND] Of course the United States did not purpose leaving the frontier of Niagara because Drummond had burnt the forts. By {371} May, Major General Brown had taken command of the United States troops at Buffalo. The next two months pass, drilling and training, and bringing forward provisions. July 3, at day dawn, during fog thick as wool on the lake, five thousand American troops cross to the Canadian side. Fort Erie's English garrison capitulates on the spot, and the English retreat down Niagara River towards Chippewa by the Falls. At Chippewa, at Queenston, at Fort George, in all to guard the Canadian frontier are only some twenty-eight hundred men. Three fourths of these are kept doing garrison duty, leaving only seven hundred men free afield. Just beside Chippewa, a creek some twenty feet wide comes into Niagara River. The Canadians have destroyed the bridge as they retreat, but the Americans pursue, and at midnight of the 4th the two armies are facing each other across the brook, ominous dreadful silence through the darkness but for the sentry's arms or the lumbering advance of artillery wagons dragged cautiously near the Canadians. The bridge is repaired under peppering shot from the British. By four on the afternoon of the 5th, the Americans have crossed the stream. Their artillery is in place, and another battalion has forded higher up and swept round to take the Canadians on the flank. The Canadians must either flee in such blind panic as Procter displayed at Moraviantown, or turn and fight. Indians in ambush, reënforcements from Fort George