The frontier of Canada to be defended, reckoning from Fort Joseph at the head of Lake Huron to Quebec, was over twelve hundred miles in length. The number of regulars in both the Canadas was a little less than five thousand. The 8th, the 41st, the 49th, the 100th Regiments, the 10th Royal Veterans, some artillery and the Canadian, Newfoundland and Glengarry Fencibles composed the force, of which about fourteen hundred and fifty were in Upper Canada, divided between Forts {202} Joseph, Amherstburg, Chippawa, Erie, York and Kingston. The most assailable frontier was the river Detroit from Sandwich to Amherstburg, the river Niagara from Fort Erie to Fort George, and the St. Lawrence from Kingston to St. Regis where the American boundary touches the St. Lawrence. Between that place and Quebec was an impenetrable forest. The population of Upper Canada was about seventy thousand, of which eleven thousand might be called out as militia, although not more than four thousand were ready for service. This, then, was the material of which Brock had to make an army of defence. It looked out of the question for it to be an army of attack. Early in May a warning note came from Mr. Thomas Barclay, the English consul-general at New York. He wrote to Sir George Prevost: "You may consider war as inevitable. It will take place in July at the latest. Upper Canada will be the first object. Military stores of all kinds and provisions are daily moving hence towards the lines. Thirteen thousand five hundred militia, the quota of the state, are drawn and ordered, to be in readiness at a moment's notice." During this month Brock had hurried up ordnance and other stores to St. Joseph, and had ordered Captain Roberts, in command there, to be on his guard. At Amherstburg there were about seven hundred militia, rank and file. The general proposed to increase the garrison there by two {203} hundred men from Fort George and York, and guns were sent also from those places, relying upon others coming from Kingston by the _Earl of Moira_. [Sidenote: War declared]