Having chased the British into Burlington Bay, Commodore Chauncey missed the one great opportunity of his lifetime. Burlington Bay was undefended. Had he sailed boldly in after the demoralized British, there was every hope of a triumph as complete as that of Perry on Lake Erie. But Chauncey did not sail in. He said he was afraid it would come on to blow and he would be caught on a lee shore. That he was afraid of something is undisputed. Chauncey, however, did now have command of the lake and a few days later retook the _Julia_ and the _Growler_ that Yeo had captured at the head of the lake, and took also the British schooners _Mary_, _Drummond_, and _Lady Gore_. These five were transporting troops along the lake-shore. Yeo got his warships into Kingston and Chauncey kept them there. On the whole, the British had undisputed control of Lake Ontario during forty-eight days. There was a sort of a contest for the control lasting sixty-nine days, and the Americans held undisputed control for one hundred and seven days of the open season of 1813. The British captured the two schooners _Growler_ and _Julia_. The Americans retook these, captured a ten-gun brig at Toronto (the _Gloucester_), and burned a twenty-four-gun ship almost completed. They also destroyed army and navy supplies and other public property far in excess of the damage the British inflicted upon the Americans. [Illustration: Buffalo, N. Y., Burned by the British, December 30, 1813. _From an old wood-cut._] There was also a small fight on Lake Champlain during the summer of 1813. The American naval force there was under Lieutenant Thomas Macdonough, whose name first appears in American history in the story of the Tripolitan war. Macdonough had two small sloops called the _Growler_ and the _Eagle_. On June 3d he sent them, under Lieutenant Smith, to the north end of the lake after three British gun-boats. The gun-boats fled down the Sorel River, the outlet of the lake. Smith bravely, but foolishly, followed them, and so got into a trap, for a strong British land force came to help the gun-boats, and pelted the American decks with musketry. The Americans had only carronades, while the gun-boats had long twenty-fours. So the British kept out of range of the Yankee short guns and kept up a fire from the long twenty-fours until the _Eagle_ had a plank knocked off under water, when she sank instantly. The _Growler_ had her main boom and forestay shot away, and grounded. The British captured both and obtained for a time the mastery of that lake. The Americans in this fight had one man killed and nineteen wounded, who, with ninety-two unhurt men, fell into the British hands. On July 31st Colonel J. Murray, with 1,000 British troops, aided by the captured sloops and the three gun-boats, assaulted Plattsburg and marched thence to Saranac. All the public stores at both places were burned and then Murray retreated.