Learning that there was a large store of grain at the mill on Lyons Creek, Bissell was sent to destroy it. On the night of the 18th, he was attacked but was successful in driving off the enemy and accomplishing his task. Drummond, now perceiving that he could not hope to cope successfully with the superior forces brought against him, fell back to Fort George and Burlington Heights. General Izard soon removed his whole force from Canada. On the 5th of November Fort Erie was blown up, to keep it from falling again into the hands of the British. On September 11th, the brilliant victory, mentioned before, was gained by the Americans at Plattsburg and with the opening of winter, the militia was disbanded and the war closed on the Canadian frontier. In 1837 the Niagara was again the scene of military operations on a slight scale when the Patriot War broke out, an uprising of revolutionists who planned the overturning of the Canadian Government. Navy Island was for a time the headquarters of the ferment, and from here, under the date of December 17th, the leader, William Lyon Mackenzie, issued a proclamation to the citizens of Canada. This strong, misguided man is most perfectly described in Bourinot's _The Story of Canada_: He had a deep sense of public wrongs, and placed himself immediately in the front rank of those who were fighting for a redress of undoubted grievances. He was thoroughly imbued with the ideas of English radicalism, and had an intense hatred of Toryism in every form. He possessed little of that strong common-sense and power of acquisitiveness which make his countrymen, as a rule, so successful in every walk of life. When he felt he was being crushed by the intriguing and corrupting influences of the governing class, aided by the lieutenant-governor, he forgot all the dictates of reason and prudence, and was carried away by a current of passion which ended in rebellion. His journal, _The Colonial Advocate_, showed in its articles and its very make-up the erratic character of the man. He was a pungent writer, who attacked adversaries with great recklessness of epithet and accusation. So obnoxious did he become to the governing class that a number of young men, connected with the best families, wrecked his office, but the damages he recovered in a court of law enabled him to give it a new lease of existence. When the "family compact" had a majority in the assembly, elected in 1830, he was expelled five times for libellous reflections on the government and house, but he was re-elected by the people, who resented the wrongs to which he was subject, and became the first mayor of Toronto, as York was now called. He carried his grievances to England, where he received much sympathy, even in conservative circles. In a new legislature, where the "compact" were in a minority, he obtained