Between forces so matched, victory ought not to have been in doubt; and if it was so, the fault certainly lay not in Perry. When, at daylight September 10, his look-out discovered the British fleet, Perry got his own squadron under way, and came down with a light wind from the southeast against Barclay’s line, striking it obliquely near the head. Perry must have been anxious to fight at close range, where his superiority was as two to one, while at long range his ship could use only two long twelve-pounders against the “Detroit’s” six twelves, one eighteen, and two twenty-fours,--an inferiority amounting to helplessness. Both the “Lawrence” and the “Niagara” were armed for close fighting, and were intended for nothing else. At long range their combined broadside, even if all their twelve-pounders were worked on one side, threw but forty-eight pounds of metal; at short range the two brigs were able to throw six hundred and forty pounds at each broadside. Perry could not have meant to fight at a distance, nor could Commander Elliott have thought it good seamanship. Yet Perry alone acted on this evident scheme; and though his official account showed that he had himself fought at close range, and that he ordered the other commanders to do the same, it gave no sufficient reasons to explain what prevented the whole fleet from acting together, and made the result doubtful. He did not even mention that he himself led the line in the “Lawrence,” with two gunboats, the “Ariel” and the “Scorpion,” supporting him, the “Caledonia,” “Niagara,” and three gunboats following. The “Lawrence” came within range of the British line just at noon, the wind being very light, the Lake calm, and Barclay, in the “Detroit,” opposite. Perry’s report began at that point:--