During the second year of the war, Macdonough was engaged, as Perry had been on Lake Erie, in building the vessels that were to form his fleet, but under difficulties even greater, in the want of workmen and materials. The British, too, were busily employed, and by the midsummer of 1814 the work of building was so far advanced that they began to think of taking the offensive, and to make the needful preparations for a great combined movement by land and water. An army of invasion numbering ten thousand men, many of them veterans, and commanded by Sir George Prevost, was massed at Montreal to march up the shores of the lake as soon as the fleet should be ready to support them in their advance. Their commander, fortunately for us, was a most unfit officer, else he would have made short work of the handful of troops under General Macomb at Plattsburg, which was the only army to oppose him. The naval force, under Com. George Downie, as yet consisted only of the brig "Linnet" and the two captured sloops; but there was also on the stocks, and nearly finished, the fine frigate "Confiance," which carried thirty long 24-pounders,--a very heavy battery for this lake warfare. To oppose this force Macdonough had one ship, the "Saratoga," mounting eight long 24's, and eighteen carronades of heavy calibre; but being carronades they were by no means equal to long guns, and the "Saratoga" was therefore far from a match for the "Confiance." He had also the schooner "Ticonderoga" and the sloop "Preble;" and the "Eagle," a brig of fair size and metal, was still under construction. In the latter part of August both the "Confiance" and the "Eagle" were launched, so that by September both sides had made up their complete numbers. The two fleets had in addition a little flotilla of gunboats, numbering ten or perhaps more upon each side. The opposing squadrons, in the number of men and in the weight of broadside, were as nearly matched as two naval squadrons well could be, and what difference there was between them was in favor of the enemy. But it amounted to so little that it is hardly worth while to consider it at all. In all kinds of naval equipment the ships were poorly fitted and supplied, but both sides shared equally in these deficiencies.