At this time there was not a vessel on the lakes, but Carleton worked hard, and soon had such a fleet as these waters had never seen. Three of his ships were built in England in such a way that they could be taken to pieces, carried through the wilderness to St. John's, and there put together again. The smaller vessels were built on the spot, soldiers, sailors, and farmers all working on them. It was well on in October before his task was finished. Then he had a fleet of twenty-five vessels in all, twenty of them being gunboats, but some of them quite large. Their crews numbered a thousand men, and they carried eighty-nine cannon. You may well suppose that the Americans knew what was going on, and that they did not fold their hands and wait. That is not, and never was, the American way. If the British could build, so could the Yankees, and Benedict Arnold was ordered to build a fleet, and to have it ready for fighting the British when it would be needed. Arnold had been at sea in his time and knew something of what he was about. His men were farmers who had taken up arms for their country, but he sent for a few shipbuilders from the coast and went to work with all his might. When October came he had fifteen vessels afloat. There were two schooners and one sloop, the others being called galleys and gondolas--no better than large rowboats, with three to six guns each. Arnold had about as many guns as Carleton, but they were smaller, and he had not nearly so many men to handle them. And his men were farmers instead of sailors, and knew no more about a cannon than about a king's crown. But the British ships were manned by picked seamen from the warships in the St. Lawrence River, and had trained naval officers. I fear if any of us had been in Arnold's place we would have wanted to go home. It looked like folly for him and his men to fight the British fleet with its skilled officers and sailors and its heavy guns. It was like meeting a raft of logs with one of chips. But Arnold was not a man who stopped to count the cost when fighting was to be had. As soon as he was ready he set sail boldly up the lake, and on the morning of October 11, 1776, he drew up his little fleet across a narrow channel between Valcour Island and the west shore of the lake. He knew the British would soon be down. It was a fine, clear, cool morning, with a strong wind from the north, just the kind of day Carleton had been waiting for. So, soon after sunrise, his fleet came sweeping on past Valcour Island. But all the sailors saw was a thicket of green trees, and they had got well south of the island before they looked back and saw the American fleet.