Farther on, as the river broadened towards the chain of lakes, came Kingston, its “agreeable, genteel society accommodated in houses of stone and wood,” also much divided by party. In the harbour ships of war stood close to the shore, where blockhouse and fort commanded the entrance. Fort Henry, begun in ’32, had by February, ’36, cost England more than £50,000; its area did not exceed an acre, the walls, massive outworks and aspect evidently conveniently designed for the success of the enemy. A few more years were required for its completion and to level the glacis; but although unfinished it was to be the theatre of a tragedy. In its finished state it has been described as a colossal monument to military stupidity. From the top of the inner fort lie in view the famous “cow pasture,” Dead Man’s Bay where some fourteen men were drowned during construction of the fort on Cedar Island, and Shoal Tower, all points of arrest to the eye in that ever-beautiful scene. Several old war-ships left from 1812 were in 1831 kept at the dockyards, shingled over and protected, some fated later to be sunk as useless, one to be burnt to the water’s edge. Hard by there was a dockyard, furnished with every article of naval stores required for the equipment of ships of war. Two seventy-fours, a frigate, a sloop of war and eleven gunboats reposed under cover on stocks. They were not planked, but men employed for the purpose replaced decaying bits of timber, and it was estimated that in little more than a month they could be got ready for sea. Immense sums had been expended during that war upon unnecessary things, unaccountable ignorance having sent the woodwork of the frigate _Psyche_ to a country where it could have been provided on the spot at one-hundredth of the expense and in one-tenth of the time necessary to convey it there. Even wedges had been sent, and the Admiralty, full of salt-water notions, was paternal enough to include a full supply of water casks for use on Lake Ontario, where a bucket overboard could draw up water undreamed of by Jack tars, from a reservoir through which flowed nearly half the fresh water supply of the globe. Clearly, details of geography were not included in the lists for those bright youths who were preparing for the Admiralty, and nowhere in Canada was the foolish touch of a prodigal-handed parent seen to more advantage than in Kingston. Across the lake at Sackett’s Harbour was a ship of 102 guns, apparently put together in a substantial manner in forty days from the day the first tree used in her construction was cut down. Peace declared, she was never launched; and, agreeably to the terms of the treaty, which called for the abolition of an armed force on the lakes, six or seven more American vessels were sunk in the harbour and, in the parlance of their owners, were “progressing to dissolution.” Green timber might have proved as good a vehicle for the squandering of money as imported wedges and water-casks.