Burlington Heights, where, with two hundred and forty war-wasted men, he effected a junction with Vincent's command, which had been compelled for a time to raise the siege of Fort George, and lake up its old position. Harrison, the American general, assumed the nominal government of the western part of Upper Canada. [Footnote: See Withrow's History of Canada, pp. 318-322.] In these stirring scenes, Captain Villiers and Zenas Drayton bore an active part. After the harvest Zenas, eager for active service, had volunteered to join Proctor in the west, and had shared his disastrous retreat and defeat. From the camp at Burlington, he forwarded by Neville Trueman a letter to his sister Kate. The writing, grammar, and spelling were not quite as good as they might have been; but the schoolmaster was not abroad in Upper Canada in the early part of the century as he is now. The following is a copy of the letter, _vertatim et literatim_:-- IN CAMP AT BURLINGTON HEIGHTS, October 10. "I take my pen in hand, leastways the quartermaster's, which he lent me, to let you know that I am well and hope you are enjoying the same blessing, also father and the sorel colt, about which I am mighty particular, as my roan has fallen lame. You will have heard about the fight at Moraviantown. It was a bad bizness. We was dead-beat with marching day after day, from Fort Maiden; and Harrison,--that's the Yankee general,--had a strong body of cavalry and captured nearly all our stores and amunishun. Our kurnel seemed to have kind of lost his head, too; (leastways, that's what I heared Captain Villiers say) and never broke down a single bridge, nor blockaded the road behind us. A few of us Niagara boys could soon have felled some trees that would stop their big guns pretty quick, but we had no axes. Backwoods fighting has to be done in backwoods way, with the axe and spade as much as with the musket. But some of these red coats fit in Spain with Wellington, and think what they don't know about fighting ain't worth knowing. "Well, at Moraviantown was an Indian church, built by a Dutch missionary from Pennsylvany, and a few houses, and our kurnel gave the word to halt and make a stand against the enemy. But the ground along the River Thames was black and mucky, almost like a swamp, and we was soon fagged out. Afore we knowed it almost, the Kentucky mounted rifles was on us a-shouting like mad. They rid right through our lines, cutting and hacking with their heavy sabres, and then they formed behind us and began firing with their muskets. Our line was completely broken, and badly cut up, and most of our fellows threw down their arms and surrendered on the spot. They could'nt do much else.