Sir James Yeo, now blockaded Chauncey's fleet in Sackett's Harbour. On the morning of the last day of May a flotilla of sixteen barges, laden with naval stores, was discovered seeking refuge amid the windings of Sandy Creek. A boat-party from the fleet, attempting pursuit, became entangled in the narrow creek, and was attacked by a strong force of the enemy, including two hundred Indians. After a desperate resistance, in which eighteen were killed and fifty wounded, the British force was overpowered, and a hundred and forty made prisoners. These were with difficulty saved from massacre by the enraged Iroquois, by the vigorous interposition of their generous captors. The course of political events in Europe intimately affected the conflict in America. Napoleon was now a prisoner in Elba, and England was enabled to throw greater vigour into her transatlantic war. In the month of June, several regiments of the veteran troops of Wellington landed at Quebec, and strong re-enforcements were rapidly despatched westward. The most sanguinary events of the campaign occurred on the Niagara frontier. On the 3rd of July, Brigadier-Generals Scott and Ripley, with a force of four thousand men, crossed the Niagara River at Buffalo. Fort Erie was garrisoned by only a hundred and seventy men, and the commandant, considering that it would be a needless effusion of blood to oppose an army with his scanty forces, surrendered at discretion. The next day, General Brown, the American Commander-in-Chief, advanced down the river to Chippewa. Here he was met by Major-General Riall, whose scanty force was strengthened by the opportune arrival of six hundred of the 3rd Buffs from Toronto, making his entire strength fifteen hundred regulars, six hundred militia, and three hundred Indians. The engagement that ensued was one of extreme severity, a greater number of combatants being brought under fire than in any previous action of the war.