On November 8th Chauncey made a spirited attack on the harbor of Kingston, and kept up his activities until navigation was closed by ice early in December. The winter was spent in building. A new ship, however, named the _Madison_, had already (November 24th) been launched at Sackett’s Harbor. Nine weeks before her timber had stood in the forest. By the opening of navigation in 1813 each combatant had a considerable fleet on Lake Ontario, though nearly all were but mere gunboats. The British, recognizing the immense importance of control of the lakes, had selected an able officer, Sir James L. Yeo, to command. The outcome of the season’s operations, however, for the detail of which one should look to larger books, was that the Americans were left in naval control. In the course of the summer the hostile squadrons were three times engaged. Chauncey’s courage and spirit have received, and deserved, high praise for “the rapidity and decision with which he created a force, as it might be in a wilderness, the professional resources which he discovered in attaining this great end, and the combined gallantry and prudence with which he manœuvred before the enemy ... while the intrepidity with which he carried his own ship into action off York has always been a subject of honest exultation in the service to which he belongs.” This high praise from one so able to judge as Fenimore Cooper, himself in early life a naval officer, holds to this day. What Chauncey did on Lake Ontario, Perry was to do, and much more, on Erie. He had been reared in Preble’s school at Tripoli, but by 1806 he was at Newport superintending the building of some of Jefferson’s absurd gunboats, and to duty such as this he was kept for six years, an inglorious inaction for such a spirit. No attention was paid by a nerveless Secretary of the Navy for his application for the lakes until it was pressed by Chauncey, on which he was ordered to report at Sackett’s Harbor with his best men. Receiving his orders on February 17th, fifty men were on their way before sunset; a hundred more followed, and Perry himself on the 22d. He reached Sackett’s Harbor on March 3d, and, after two weeks, was ordered to Erie. Sailing-master Dobbins and Noah Brown, master shipwright, already had three gunboats well under way and keels laid for two brigs. The timber for their construction had been but a few days before trees in the forest.[36] But nothing had been provided in the way of armament, cordage, stores, men, or officers. These dribbled in through the appeals and constant personal work of Perry. In five months he had his little fleet fairly ready. On August 10th he went in search of the British. He had the brigs _Lawrence_ and _Niagara_, of 20 guns each, and eight schooners carrying, one three, the others two and one guns each. The British commodore, Barclay, had the ship _Detroit_, of 19 guns; the _Queen Charlotte_, of 17; the _Lady Prevost_, a schooner of 13, and three small craft of 10, 3, and 1.