In July, a press warrant was granted to Rear Admiral Sawyer for 48 hours. Desertions from the navy were frequent and large offers were reported to have been made by the enemy for such able seamen as would come over to the American navy. The Commander-in-Chief, in consequence, found it necessary to publish a proclamation at Halifax offering the King's pardon to all who had deserted, on their returning to their duty. Letters of Marque against the Americans were ordered in Council on 31st July, and all vessels were prohibited from leaving the port without special license, for the space of one month. The old Halifax Artillery Company was at this time a very popular corps, and included many of the young merchants as well as tradesmen of the town. It was at one time supposed that the property owned by those whose names were on its roll comprised no small part of the wealth of our town. An Act of the Legislature was passed this year regarding that part of the public road or highway which leads from Fort Massey to the exercising ground on the Commons. His Majesty's service required that this piece of road should be enclosed for the purpose of enlarging the Artillery Park. It was therefore enacted that when the officers of His Majesty's Ordnance should have laid out a new road agreeable to the plan submitted to His Excellency Sir John Cope Sherbrooke, and filed in the Surveyor General's office, measuring fifty feet in breadth, through the field of John George Pyke, and shall have procured a release from Mr. Pyke, and shall have completed said new road, that the Engineer should take in 310 feet in length of that part of said road which now leads from Fort Massey to the exercising ground on the Common, forever for the Ordnance Department at Halifax. The new road to be substituted therefor. 1813. The arrival of DeWatteville's regiment of Germans in May on their way to reinforce the army at Quebec, and of the American ship Volante with a valuable cargo and mounting 21 guns taken by H. M. Brig Curlew, Capt. Michael Head,[70] and the accession of the 64th Regiment to the strength of the garrison were the chief events during the spring of 1813. [Footnote 70: Brother of the late Dr. Samuel Head of Halifax.]