While Perry was laboring at Erie to get his squadron ready, the Americans on Lake Ontario, as has been intimated in what was said about the capture of Fort George, were by no means idle. Plans were laid for an assault on Toronto--then called York--to be followed by the attack on Fort George at the mouth of Niagara River, and after that, Kingston, the British naval station across from Sackett’s Harbor, was to be assaulted. A force of 8,300 men was collected for this purpose at Sackett’s Harbor in the spring of 1813, of whom 1,300 were sailors from the squadron of Commodore Chauncey. The soldiers were under General Dearborn, assisted by General Zebulon M. Pike. On April 22, 1813, 1,700 soldiers were embarked on the fourteen ships under Chauncey, the flag-ship being the _Madison_, commanded by Lieutenant Elliott, who was afterward to go to aid Perry. [Illustration: _Map of_ NIAGARA RIVER] The squadron sailed on the 25th, and after a stormy, sea-sick passage, appeared off Toronto on the 27th, and the troops were landed under command of Pike, Dearborn being too sick to go ashore. Pike was a famous explorer in his day, and the famous Peak of Colorado perpetuates his memory. As the boats were going ashore he observed that the leaders were hesitating under fire from the British, and jumping into a boat, he was quickly at the head of the procession and effected a landing. The chief work of the navy here was to bombard the works within reach, and the woods where a lot of Indians were in cover, but it is worth telling that, as the American troops were advancing, Pike ordered a bugler to sound a charge, and that the wild notes of this instrument so terrified the red men that they fled with a horrified yell in dismay--leaving the Yankees to advance to the tune of “Yankee Doodle” unmolested by them. And to this must be added the fact that a magazine in a block-house that the enemy despaired of holding was blown up, and fifty-two Americans were killed and one hundred and eighty wounded. As it happened, forty of the British also lost their lives by the explosion. Pike was among the mortally wounded, but he had the satisfaction of dying with the flag of the enemy under his head. A large quantity of naval and military stores were taken here, besides two hundred and ninety prisoners. [Illustration: The Death of General Pike. _From an old wood-cut._] It is a pleasure to add that in spite of the antagonisms that grew out of a war which the Americans were compelled to wage to protect their seamen on the high seas, there is no city in the British domain where Yankees are more cordially received than at Toronto. [Illustration: The Niagara River and Scenes from the War of 1812. _From an engraving in Hinton’s History of the United States._]