There had undoubtedly by this time been a falling off in the character of the American crews. The Atlantic now swarmed with privateers which, as in our Revolution, attracted the best men; the navy thus labored under a severe handicap. The privateers did immense damage to British commerce and caused the British merchant to long for peace, but they damaged our real naval interests. This damage would have been more real had not the British naval power now begun to tell in blockade, which became one of absolute strictness. The _United States_ and the captured _Macedonian_, which had been repaired and commissioned at New York, got to New London by way of Hell Gate, but were so strictly watched that they remained there for the rest of the war. Naval action was now, perforce, to be confined almost entirely to the lakes, where it was momentous in character. The fights on the ocean were but exhibitions of ability and prowess; those on the lakes were vital to the outcome of the war. CHAPTER XVII Our army efforts on the frontier of Canada had been great failures. In the very beginning of the war General William Hull, Governor of Michigan, had been obliged to surrender his small army at Detroit for the simple reason that he was faced by starvation. He was tried and sentenced to death, but was reprieved by President Madison. But the fault was not wholly Hull’s. It was, along with Hull’s age and inefficiency, the ineptitude of our own administrative and legislative authorities in Washington. Our northern defence was thus to fall upon the navy. There was in 1813 no vessel of war on Lake Erie, and but one, the _Oneida_, of 116 tons, built four years before the war, on Ontario. The British had long had a force on this lake, and in 1812 there were six vessels, carrying in all about 80 guns; the largest was the _Royal George_, of 22. Had the British commander been competent he could easily have controlled the lake. He attacked Sackett’s Harbor in July, but Lieutenant Woolsey, commanding the _Oneida_, landed his guns, and with the batteries thus formed beat him off. Commodore Isaac Chauncey was now, in August, 1812, sent to command both lakes. Guns, officers, shipwrights, and stores were transported from New York, and by November a small fleet was ready. Before this, however, Lieutenant L. D. Elliot, who had been sent to Buffalo to look after Lake Erie, had made a brilliant expedition against the _Detroit_, which had been surrendered at the time of Hull’s disaster, and another vessel, the _Caledonia_. Both were captured on the Canada side of the lake at Fort Erie by boarding, a small army detachment assisting. The _Detroit_ was burned.