Colonel Vesey, writing to Brock, states that he regrets not having a daughter of marriageable age. "You should be married," runs the letter, "particularly as fate seems to detain you so long in Canada--but pray do not marry there." In another letter, dated Portsmouth, June 10, 1811, the same correspondent refers to Brock's appointment as Major-General. Oddly enough General Vesey says, referring to his friend's probable future: "It may perhaps be your fate to go to the Mediterranean, but the Peninsula is the most direct road to the honour of the Bath, and as you are an ambitious man, that is the station you should prefer. . . ." Only sixteen months from the day this letter was written Brock was gazetted Knight of the Bath--the lonely, patient, splendid man winning the great honour in the very land he was longing so sincerely to leave. On October 17th a communication from Lieutenant-Colonel Torrens gives General Brock permission to return to England, but it was too late; both honour and necessity demanded his presence in Canada as the exciting days of 1812 drew on apace. [Illustration: A Plan of Fort Niagara after English Occupation, by Montresor.] At the outbreak of hostilities in this year the United States embraced an immense territory, extending from the St. Lawrence to Mexico, excepting Florida--which remained in the possession of Spain until 1819--and from the Atlantic indefinitely westward to the Spanish possessions on the Pacific coast, afterwards acquired by the United States. The total population of the United States was upwards of eight million souls, of whom a million and a half were negro slaves in the South. Large wastes of wild land lay between the Canadian settlements and the thickly populated sections of New England, New York, and Ohio. It was only with great difficulty and expense that men, munitions of war, and provisions could be brought to the frontier during the contest.