“The period has arrived when your services are required at Albany, and I am instructed by the President to direct, that, having made arrangements for placing the works on the sea-coast in the best state of defence your means will permit, ... you will then order all the recruits not otherwise disposed of to march immediately to Albany, or some station on Lake Champlain, to be organized for the invasion of Canada.” With this official letter Eustis sent a private letter[248] of the same date, explaining the reason for his order:-- “If ... we divide, distribute, and render inefficient the force authorized by law, we play the game of the enemy within and without. District among the field-officers the seaboard!... Go to Albany or the Lake! The troops shall come to you as fast as the season will admit, and the blow must be struck. Congress must not meet without a victory to announce to them.” Dearborn at Boston replied to these orders, July 13,[249] a few hours after Hull’s army, six hundred miles away, crossed the Detroit River into Canada and challenged the whole British force on the lakes. “For some time past I have been in a very unpleasant situation, being at a loss to determine whether or not I ought to leave the sea-coast. As soon as war was declared [June 18] I was desirous of repairing to Albany, but was prevented by your letters of May 20 and June 12, and since that time by the extraordinary management of some of the governors in this quarter. On the receipt of your letter of June 26 I concluded to set out in three or four days for Albany, but the remarks in your letter of the 1st inst. prevented me. But having waited for more explicit directions until I begin to fear that I may be censured for not moving, and having taken such measures as circumstances would permit for the defence of the sea-coast, I have concluded to leave this place for Albany before the end of the present week unless I receive orders to remain.” A general-in-chief unable to decide at the beginning of a campaign in what part of his department his services were most needed was sure to be taught the required lesson by the enemy. Even after these warnings Dearborn made no haste. Another week passed before he announced, July 21, his intended departure for Albany the next day, but without an army. “Such is the opposition in this State as to render it doubtful whether much will be done to effect in raising any kind of troops.” The two months he passed in Boston were thrown away; the enlistments were so few as to promise nothing, and the governor of Massachusetts barely condescended to acknowledge without obeying his request for militia to defend the coast.