[Footnote 86: To the facts and observations above stated I must add the extraordinary circumstance, that a staff officer was sent, express from Montreal to Upper Canada, to prevent General Brock from proceeding to the western district, but which most happily was prevented from taking effect by the extraordinary rapidity of the movements of that most zealous and gallant officer, who had arrived thither before the officer so sent could reach him.--_Letters of Veritas._] [Footnote 87: See extract from Letters of Veritas on this point. Appendix A, Section 1, No. 3.] [Footnote 88: Appendix A, Section 1, No. 4.] [Footnote 89: This letter was forwarded by Brigade-Major Shekleton with that of the 12th August (see page 217), from Sir George Prevost, who doubtless wrote another the following day relative to the armistice, but we cannot find it among Major-General Brock's papers.] [Footnote 90: Coteau du Lac and Isle aux Noix are the keys of Lower Canada; the former completely commands the navigation of the St. Lawrence between the Upper and Lower Provinces, and the latter had been so decidedly regarded as the barrier of Lower Canada from the Champlain frontier, that it excited the particular attention of the French engineers in the last defence of the country, and was afterwards fortified at considerable expense by General Haldimand, daring the war of the American revolution.--_Quarterly Review_.] [Footnote 91: Fort Wayne is situated at the junction of the St. Mary and St. Joseph rivers, which form the Miami of the lake, and not more than twelve miles from the navigable waters of the Wabash. This post is nearly in the centre of the Indian settlements on this side the Mississippi. Many Indian villages lay from twelve to sixty miles from this place.--_Brown's American History_.] [Footnote 92: "The Indians on this occasion" (the defence of Michilimakinack, in 1814,) "behaved with exemplary zeal and fidelity in our cause; and indeed their attachment throughout has been such as to make me blush for my country, in the dereliction of their interests in the negotiations at Ghent, after so many promises made them, and so fair a prospect at the commencement of these negotiations."--_Letters of Veritas_.] [Footnote 93: See page 291. We cannot discover a copy of Major-General Brock's letter of the 7th September, to Sir George Prevost, to which the latter officer refers in his letter of the 14th.] [Footnote 94: This communication, of which we have no particulars, is the more singular, as Colonel Van R---- commanded the advance of the American attacking party on the 13th of October, when Sir Isaac Brock lost his life. Colonel Van R---- was severely wounded on that day.] CHAPTER XIV.