On June 1st General Hull, the civil governor of the Michigan territory, and then recently made brigadier-general, in command of about two thousand men, began his march for the Michigan territory from Dayton, Ohio. On June 7th he arrived at Urbana, where he was joined by the 4th Regiment. Colonel McArthur, from Detroit, with his regiment of Michigan militia, had been ordered to open a road as far as the Scioto River, where two blockhouses, joined by a strong stockade, were called Fort McArthur. General Hull's march lay for part of the way through thick and trackless forests. On June 18th war was formally declared by the United States against England, but news of this did not reach Sir George Prevost at Quebec until the 26th of that month, and then it did not come officially but by a letter to the secretary, H. W. Ryland, from the firm of Forsyth, Richardson & Company, and James McGillivray of the North-West and South-West Fur Companies. The letter was as follows: "Montreal, June 24th. You will be pleased to inform the governor-general that we have just received by an express which left New York on the 20th and Albany on Sunday last at 6 a.m., the account that war against Great Britain is declared." Fortunately General Brock was not left to learn the news by the circuitous channel of the governor-general. {204} He, too, had a communication sent him by express from Niagara. It came to Thomas Clark from John Jacob Astor, New York, and was immediately sent on to General Brock, who received it in York on June 26th.[1] In a few hours two companies of the 41st Regiment in garrison at York were embarked in boats to the Niagara frontier, while the general assembled his council, called an extra session of the legislature, and then in a small open boat, with his brigade major, Evans, and his aide-de-camp, Captain Glegg, crossed the lake, (thirty miles) to Fort George, where he established his headquarters. Colonel Baynes wrote to him as soon as the intelligence reached Sir George, and said His Excellency was inclined to believe the report, but it was not official. Colonel Baynes also reported that six large canoes of the North-West Company going to the upper lakes by the Ottawa, to receive their furs, had offered to accommodate six soldiers in each canoe, in order to reinforce St. Joseph, but Sir George did not think it well to weaken the 49th by sending them. The letter ends, "Sir George desires me to say that he does not attempt to prescribe specific rules for your guidance--they must be directed by your discretion, and the circumstances of the time--the present order of the day with him is _forbearance_." {205} [Sidenote: News from Quebec]