Van Rensselaer’s decision was supported by many different motives,--the lateness of the season, the weather, the sickness and the discontent of the militia threatening actual disbandment, the jealousy of a militia officer toward the regular service, and the additional jealousy of a Federalist toward the Government; for Van Rensselaer was not only a Federalist, but was also a rival candidate against Tompkins for the governorship of New York, and the Republicans were eager to charge him with intentional delay. A brilliant stroke by Lieutenant Elliott at the same moment added to the restlessness of the army. On the night of October 8 Elliott and Captain Towson of the Second Artillery, with fifty sailors and fifty soldiers of Smyth’s brigade, cut out two British vessels under the guns of Fort Erie.[301] One of these vessels was the “Adams,” captured by Brock at Detroit, the other had belonged to the Northwestern Fur Company, and both were of great value to the British as a reinforcement to their fleet on Lake Erie. The larger was destroyed; the smaller, named the “Caledonia,” was saved, and served to increase the little American fleet. Brock felt keenly the loss of these two vessels, which “may reduce us to incalculable distress,” he wrote to Prevost, October 11. He watched the progress of Elliott’s and Chauncey’s naval preparations with more anxiety than he showed in regard to Dearborn’s military movements, although he spared no labor in fortifying himself against these. General Van Rensselaer conceived a plan for a double attack by throwing one body of troops across the river to carry Queenston, while a strong force of regulars should be conveyed in boats by way of the Lake and landed on the Lake shore in the rear of Fort George to take the fort by storm,--a movement afterward successfully made; but owing to Smyth’s conduct the double attack was abandoned, and Van Rensselaer decided to try only the simpler movement against Queenston. Brock with less than two thousand men guarded nearly forty miles of front along the Niagara River, holding at Queenston only two companies of the Forty-ninth Regiment with a small body of militia,--in all about three hundred men. Brock was himself at Fort George, some five miles below Queenston, with the greater part of the Forty-first Regiment, which he had brought back from Detroit, and a number of Indians. The rest of his force was at Chippawa and Fort Erie, opposite Buffalo, where the real attack was expected.