To operate against Canada effectually it was necessary to have a naval force on the great fresh-water lakes of Erie and Ontario. When the British ship _Leopard_ attacked the _Chesapeake_ in order to impress upon American minds that once an American citizen was impressed into the British Navy he must remain there until the British Government saw fit to release him, the American Congress was stirred so far as to order a war-brig built on Lake Ontario. She was begun at Oswego in 1808, and launched as the _Oneida_ in 1809, under the command of Lieutenant Melancthon Woolsey, U. S. N. During this year also Sackett’s Harbor was chosen as a naval station, and some military companies were stationed there. Arsenals were established by New York State in Champion Village and at Watertown, both not far from Sackett’s Harbor. And thereafter the embargo acts of one kind and another gave sufficient excuse to the people of that region to make very lively times, both afloat and ashore, until, in 1812, the war came. In fact war began here before it was declared at Washington. The British merchant-schooner _Lord Nelson_ was found in American waters and captured by the _Oneida_ on May 12th. She was condemned for violating the Embargo Act. In June the British merchant-schooner _Niagara_ was taken and sold for violating the revenue laws. These seizures were revenged after the war began by an energetic Canadian named Jones, who organized a party and captured two of a fleet of eight American merchant-schooners trying to flee from Ogdensburg to Sackett’s Harbor. The two were burned. Meantime, it should be said that while the American shores were sparsely settled, the Canadian side of the waters was very well settled, Kingston being the chief naval and military post. And while the Americans were building one slow brig to prepare for the inevitable war, the British had built and armed a squadron of six vessels that included the _Royal George_, of twenty-two guns, _Prince Regent_, of sixteen guns, _Earl of Moira_, of fourteen guns, and three smaller ones carrying fourteen, twelve, and four guns--in all eighty-four guns. These were commanded by a Commodore Earle. It is worth noting here that the British historians all speak of these vessels and their crews as Canadians as distinguished from the British, and that the Canadian seamen are everywhere denounced as cowards, just as the Yankee seamen were. However, the distinction between “colonists” and the “British” is made by English writers to this day. [Illustration: SCENE OF Naval Operations on LAKE ONTARIO, 1812-’13.]