The first intelligence received of General Procter's defeat was through a Staff-Adjutant, who had escaped from the field of battle, and who, by exaggerated accounts of this disaster, and of the consequences to be expected from it, spread terror and dismay through the country as he passed rapidly along to Kingston, where he arrived on the 12th October. In the mean time, General Vincent, whom these reports had reached, and who had also on the 8th received from General Procter intelligence of the action, had begun his retreat from the four-mile creek, and had halted at the twelve-mile creek, when a communication from Colonel Young, at Burlington, induced him immediately to fall back upon that place as a post where he might with less difficulty maintain himself if attacked, and where he might wait for instructions from General de Rottenburg, the officer commanding in Upper Canada. General de Rottenburg, who was on his way from York to Kingston, when the intelligence of General Procter's defeat overtook him on the road, immediately sent to General Vincent, directing him, in his despatch of the 10th October, if he did not consider himself sufficiently strong to hold out against the superior force of the enemy, to destroy the stores, &c. and to fall back on Kingston. These directions, it is to be observed, were given under the impression created by the Staff-Adjutant's account, which, in a very short time was discovered to be greatly exaggerated; and it appears from General Vincent's letter to General de Rottenburg, previous to the receipt of the despatch last mentioned, as well as from the one in answer to it, that he had no immediate intention of retreating from the position he then occupied, although he thought circumstances might afterwards render such a measure necessary. In the mean time the same exaggerated accounts of the action at the Moravian village, which had been carried to Kingston, having been received at Montreal by the Commander of the forces, together with General de Rottenburg's despatches, communicating the orders he had sent to General Vincent in consequence of that intelligence, Sir George Prevost in his letter to General de Rottenburg of the 18th October, approved of those orders, and directed them to be carried into execution.