Measures were promptly taken to secure this important object. Detachments from the King's ships at Quebec, with volunteers from the transports, and a corps of artillery, in all, nearly 700 men, were sent across to the Lake, there to construct, with timber felled by themselves, and in the presence of a superior enemy, the vessels in which they were to meet him. A party joined from the _Blonde_, under Lieutenant Dacres, with Mr. Brown, one of the midshipmen. Mr. Pellew was to have remained with the ship; but he appeared so much disappointed at the arrangement, that Captain Pownoll allowed him also to go. The season was already so far advanced, that it would have been a creditable service only to complete the preparations for the next campaign; but the zeal and exertions of the officers and men surpassed all calculation. They got across to the Lake thirty long-boats, many large flat-bottomed boats, a vast number of bateaux, and a gondola of thirty tons, carrying them over land, or dragging them up the rapids. The keel and floor-timbers of the _Inflexible_, a ship of three hundred tons, which had been laid at Quebec, were taken to pieces, and carried over to St. John's, on the Lake, where a dockyard was established, under the superintendence of Lieutenant Schanck, an officer of extraordinary mechanical ingenuity. Here, on the morning of the 2nd September, the _Inflexible_ was again laid down, and by sunset, all her former parts were put together, and a considerable quantity of additional timbers prepared. The progress of the work was like magic. Trees growing in the forest in the morning, would form part of the ship before night. She was launched in twenty-eight days from laying her keel, and sailed next evening, armed with eighteen twelve-pounders, and fully equipped for service. Two schooners, the _Maria_, and the _Carleton_; the _Loyal Convert_, gondola; the _Thunder_, a kind of flat-bottomed raft, carrying twelve heavy guns and two howitzers; and twenty-four boats, armed each with a field piece, or carriage-gun, formed, with the _Inflexible_, a force equal to the service, where but a few days before, the British had scarcely a boat upon the waters. No time was now lost in seeking the enemy, and Sir Guy Carleton himself embarked with the squadron. Captain Pringle, as commodore, sailed with Lieutenant Schanck in the _Inflexible_. Lieutenant Dacres, with Mr. Brown and Mr. Pellew, were appointed to the _Carleton_.