However inexperienced the Government might be, it could not overlook the necessity of providing for one vital point. Detroit claimed early attention, and received it. The dangers surrounding Detroit were evident to any one who searched the map for that remote settlement, within gunshot of British territory and surrounded by hostile Indian tribes. The Governor of Michigan, William Hull, a native of Connecticut, had done good service in the Revolutionary War, but had reached the age of sixty years without a wish to resume his military career. He preferred to remain in his civil post, leaving to some officer of the army the charge of military operations; but he came to Washington in February, 1812, and urged the Government to take timely measures for holding the Indians in check. He advised the President and Cabinet to increase the naval force on Lake Erie, although he already had at Detroit an armed brig ready to launch, which he thought sufficient to control the upper lakes. The subject was discussed; but the delay necessary to create a fleet must have risked, if it did not insure, the loss of the whole Northwestern Territory, and the President necessarily decided to march first a force to Detroit strong enough to secure the frontier, and, if possible, to occupy the whole or part of the neighboring and friendly British territory in Upper Canada. This decision Hull seems to have suggested, for he wrote,[230] March 6, to Secretary Eustis,-- “A part of your army now recruiting may be as well supported and disciplined at Detroit as at any other place. A force adequate to the defence of that vulnerable point would prevent a war with the savages, and probably induce the enemy to abandon the province of Upper Canada without opposition. The naval force on the Lakes would in that event fall into our possession, and we should obtain the command of the waters without the expense of building such a force.”