was placed, was despatched to York for the purpose, amongst other services, of consulting with Major-General Brock, upon the best means of preserving the ascendancy which we possessed upon Lake Ontario. In consequence of Captain Gray's suggestion, the building of a very fine schooner, called the Prince Regent, was commenced at York in the following March, which was launched, equipped, and employed upon the Lake in conveying supplies of great importance on the 3d July, immediately after notice of the declaration of war had been received in Upper Canada. This fact furnishes a full contradiction to the assertion of the Reviewer,[36] that "after slumbering away the summer and autumn without one effort to increase our marine in amount or efficiency, Sir George Prevost suddenly awoke, in the depth of winter, to a sense of the condition to which his supineness had reduced the British cause, and the building of two frigates commenced with convulsive activity." That Sir George Prevost, with so decided a naval ascendancy on both lakes at the commencement of the war, should not have thought himself justified in any extraordinary exertions to increase that ascendancy, is not to be wondered, at when it is considered, that for every purpose of the defensive system which he had adopted, the British force upon the Lakes was amply sufficient, and that Government would not have approved, in the then state of affairs, of the expense which such a measure must unavoidably have occasioned. Aware, however, as Sir George Prevost was of the important advantages which the dominion of the Lakes afforded for the preservation of the Canadas, he had, both long before, and immediately after the commencement of the war, called the attention of His Majesty's Government to that subject. He had also in his communication with General Brock, and particularly by the Deputy Assistant Quarter-Master-General, invited his consideration of the same matter. It certainly affords a strong proof of the conviction of that gallant and able officer, that our force on those waters needed no extraordinary exertion at that time to increase it beyond what had been already made; that, excepting in his letter before referred to, of 2d December, 1811, he never once mentioned the subject of our marine in his various different communications with Sir George Prevost, respecting the means of defending the Upper Province, until in his despatch of the 11th October, 1812, he acquainted the Commander of the forces with the recapture of the brig Detroit by the enemy. Previous, however, to this period, and as soon as Sir George Prevost had reason to suppose from the refusal of the American Government to accede to the Armistice, or to consider the revocation of the Orders in Council a sufficient ground for pacification, that the war would be continued, and that renewed efforts would be made for the invasion of the Canadas, he had strongly represented