“It must not be forgotten that at the time Colonel Peacocke decided to wait that there was no reason for him to fear any ill result from the delay. At that time he expected that a heavy battle would take place, before the Fenians would be driven out, and that instead of the object being to prevent them getting out of the country, the opinion of every one was, that the great difficulty would be to drive them out, and that he was right in proceeding cautiously with that object in view. At any rate he anticipated that the steamer (for which he had given orders to be employed) would have prevented their escape.” In another passage the writer speaks thus, of the plans of Dennis, Booker and Akers, at Colborne in contravention of their chief at Chippewa; “There was the commanding officer’s plan changed by his subordinates almost at the moment of execution. The three officers whom he had charged with the execution of his orders, even including the staff officer who carried them, coolly forming themselves into a mimic council of war, aided by a customs officer, and unitedly deciding upon a plan which has been previously shown to be absurd, a plan for cutting off the Fenian retreat to the east, but leaving the whole country open to them to the west, as well as uncovering the canal they were sent to protect. “Again Lieut.-Col. Dennis’s instructions were to wait further orders before any attack was made; and yet Capt Akers says, he was anxious to move with the volunteers at once without arranging a junction with Colonel Peacocke. Capt. Akers was sent to go with Lieut.-Col. Booker, and consult and advise with him on Col. Peacocke’s plan, and assist him in carrying it out. Col. Dennis was sent to command the ‘Queen’s Own,’ and yet before receiving any answer from Col. Peacocke, both these officers, in disobedience to orders, went off in the tug to carry out their own plan. “The only way in which their conduct can be accounted for is, that they were so confident that Col. Peacocke would at once fall in with their plan of operation in lieu of his own, that they never, for one moment, calculated that his answer would be in the negative. Being imbued with this idea it can readily be imagined that Capt. Akers would not be very particular in going into details and explaining minutely to Lieut.-Col. Booker the plan which they had both looked upon as virtually abandoned. It can also be conceived, even if Capt. Akers did enter minutely into the details of the plan laid down by Col. Peacocke, that Lieut.-Col. Booker believing that it was a useless precaution, would not give so close attention to it, or be able so clearly to remember it, as if he felt when he heard it he was about setting out to put it in execution.