Meantime Perry was so overworked that he was stricken with a bilious remittent fever, but he did not by any means give way to it. The newly arrived vessels were anchored in the bay off Cascade Creek, and thereafter their crews were drilled under Perry’s personal supervision “several hours each day” in the work of handling the guns and ships. And so were all the men under Perry’s command. But the number of the men was a matter of the greatest worry. The two brigs had been launched, and they, with the three gun-boats, were soon fitted with sails, rigging, and guns, but crews to man them were not to be had. To add to the distress of the young commander the Government at Washington sent him two orders (received on July 15th and 19th), to co-operate with General Harrison, who commanded the American land forces not far from Sandusky. Worse yet, word came that the British had a new and powerful vessel, called the _Detroit_, about completed at Malden on the Detroit River, and that Captain Robert H. Barclay, who had served under Nelson at Trafalgar, had been placed in command of the British fleet. A little later still Barclay actually appeared off Erie “to have a proper look,” as a sailor might say, at what the Yankees had been doing, and so prepare for clearing out the harbor. Perry’s appeal for men became at this time stirring: “For God’s sake and _yours_, and mine, send me men and officers, and I will have them all in a day or two,” he wrote to Commodore Chauncey. He got some men--“a motley set, blacks, soldiers, and boys.” The British historians with one accord say that Perry’s men were all “picked men.” An American can well afford to excuse them for thinking so when the result of the fight this “motley set” made is considered; but it was a “scrub” crew. However, by the end of July, having recruited among the landsmen of the region a few men, Perry found that he had about three hundred “effective officers and men, with which to man two twenty-gun brigs and eight smaller vessels.” Although an utterly inadequate force, Perry could no longer restrain his anxiety to try the mettle of the enemy, and on Sunday, August 1, 1813, moved his vessels down to the bar that lies across the bay. He found but four feet of water where six had previously existed, the trend of the wind on this shoal-lake making such variations of depth common. Perry had already provided means for lifting his new brigs over the bar when the water was six feet deep, for they drew at least eight feet, but now found the task greater than he had supposed. However, after getting the smaller vessels over the bar and posting them where they could make a good fight should the expected enemy arrive, he set to work to lift the brigs over.