Secretary Armstrong also came to Sackett’s Harbor, September 5, and established the War Department at that remote point for nearly two months.[231] When Wilkinson arrived, October 2, Armstrong’s difficulties began. Wilkinson, then fifty-six years old, was broken by the Lake fever. “He was so much indisposed in mind and body,” according to Brigadier-General Boyd,[232] “that in any other service he would have perhaps been superseded in his command.” According to Wilkinson’s story, he told Secretary Armstrong that he was incapable of commanding the army, and offered to retire from it; but the secretary said there was no one to take his place, and he could not be spared. In private Armstrong was believed to express himself more bluntly, and Wilkinson was told that the secretary said: “I would feed the old man with pap sooner than leave him behind.”[233] Wilkinson’s debility did not prevent him from giving orders, or from becoming jealous and suspicious of every one, but chiefly of Armstrong.[234] Whatever was suggested by Armstrong was opposed by Wilkinson. Before returning to Sackett’s Harbor, October 4, Wilkinson favored an attack on Kingston.[235] On reaching Sackett’s Harbor, finding that Armstrong also favored attacking Kingston, Wilkinson argued “against my own judgment” in favor of passing Kingston and descending upon Montreal.[236] Ten days afterward Armstrong changed his mind. Yeo had succeeded in returning to Kingston, bringing reinforcements. “He will bring with him about fifteen hundred effectives,” wrote Armstrong;[237] “and thanks to the storm and our snail-like movements down the Lake, they will be there before we can reach it. The manœuvre intended is lost, so far as regards Kingston. What we now do against that place must be done by hard blows, at some risk.” Accordingly, October 19, Armstrong wrote to Wilkinson a letter advising abandonment of the attack on Kingston, and an effort at “grasping the safer and the greater object below.”[238] “I call it the safer and greater object, because at Montreal you find the weaker place and the smaller force to encounter; at Montreal you meet a fresh, unexhausted, efficient reinforcement of four thousand men; at Montreal you approach your own resources, and establish between you and them an easy and an expeditious intercourse; at Montreal you occupy a point which must be gained in carrying your attacks home to the purposes of the war, and which, if seized now, will save one campaign; at Montreal you hold a position which completely severs the enemy’s line of operations, which shuts up the Ottawa as well as the St. Lawrence against him, and which while it restrains all below, withers and perishes all above itself.” As Armstrong veered toward Montreal Wilkinson turned decidedly toward Kingston, and wrote the same day to the secretary a letter[239] of remonstrance, closing by a significant remark:--