The artifices employed to wean the soldier from his duty, conspire to render almost ineffectual every effort of the officers to maintain the usual degree of order and discipline. The lures to desertion continually thrown out by the Americans, and the facility with which it can be accomplished, exacting a more than ordinary precaution on the part of the officers, insensibly produces mistrust between them and the men, highly prejudicial to the service. Experience has taught me that no regular regiment, however high its claim to discipline, can occupy the frontier posts of Lower and Upper Canada without suffering materially in its numbers. It might have been otherwise some years ago; but now that the country, particularly the opposite shore, is chiefly inhabited by the vilest characters, who have an interest in debauching the soldier from his duty; since roads are opened into the interior of the States, which facilitate desertion, it is impossible to avoid the contagion. A total change must be effected in the minds and views of those who may hereafter be sent on this duty, before the evil can be surmounted.[31] Such was the warlike tenor of despatches now at hand from Canada that Brock, eager to be at the post of duty at a critical time, hastened from London in June, 1806, cutting short his leave of absence. Throughout that year and its successor he was actively engaged in studying his province with regard to military demands that might suddenly be made upon it; it is noteworthy that the commander feared that in case of an outbreak between England and America a considerable part of the inhabitants of Upper Canada (Loyalists) would prove friendly to the young Republic. Discussing a new militia law he wrote as follows to the Council: In thus complying with the dictates of his duty, Colonel Brock was not prepared to hear that the population of the province, instead of affording him ready and effectual support, might probably add to the number of his enemies; and he feels much disappointment in being informed by the first authority, that the only law in any degree calculated to answer the end proposed was likely, if attempted to be enforced, to meet with such general opposition as to require the aid of the military to give it even a momentary impulse. If such were the apprehensions of the commanding officer in Canada little wonder General Hull, in later days, counted on the co-operation of many of the inhabitants of the trans-Niagara country. In September, 1807, Brock, who was acting-governor in Canada pending the arrival of Sir James Craig, was fortifying Quebec in anticipation of an immediate outbreak of the impending war. In this connection a little incident displays his character. He had caused to be erected at Quebec a very powerful battery, and of it he wrote his brothers: