The tide of fortune on the sea had now turned in favor of Great Britain. On the 14th of August, the _Argus_, of twenty guns, employed in carrying out Mr. Crawford, the American Minister to France, was met after having landed the minister off St. David's, at the mouth of the Irish channel, by the British brig _Pelican_, of eighteen guns, more heavily armed, though carrying fewer guns, and better manned than the _Argus_, so that, everything considered, the vessels were tolerably well matched. As a matter of course they fought, and the _Pelican_, one of the improved brigs, soon out-manoeuvred and raked her antagonist. Captain Allen, of the _Argus_, fell at the first broadside. The _Argus_ was ultimately obliged to surrender with a loss of six killed and seventeen wounded, her opponent having only three killed and five wounded. It was not long after this that the British brig _Boxer_, of only fourteen guns and sixty-six men, fell a prize to the American brig _Enterprise_, of sixteen guns and one hundred and twenty men, but afterwards, throughout the war, single combats, where there was even an approach to equality, terminated in favor of the British. Captain Blythe, of the _Boxer_, and the commander of the _Enterprise_, Lieutenant Burrows, were buried in one grave, at Portland in Maine, with military honors. Thus were the favors of Mars still balanced with tolerable fairness between the combatants. Between Upper and Lower Canada the communication by either land or water, in summer, was very imperfect, during the war. There was then no Rideau Canal, connecting Kingston with the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence. And there was neither the Lachine, the Beauharnois, the Cornwall nor any other canal by which the dangers and difficulties of the St. Lawrence rapids might be avoided. Only batteaux and canoes plied between Upper and Lower Canada. A kind of flat-bottomed boat, of from 35 to 40 feet in length, and about six feet beam in the centre, carrying from four to four and a half tons, was only available for the transport of passengers, goods, wares, and merchandise. The boat was worked by oars, a mast and sail, drag-ropes for towing, and long poles for pushing them through the rapids, while the bow was kept towards the shore by a tow line held by the boat's crew or attached to horses. From ten to twelve days were occupied in the voyage from Montreal or Lachine to Kingston. To convey stores from Lachine to Kingston, during the war, required some tact. On one side of the river were the British batteries, while exactly opposite was an American fort or earthwork, which as the batteaux poled past Prescott or Brockville, could throw a round shot or two in their immediate vicinity without very much trouble. Indeed the Americans did very quietly send one or two cruisers and privateers to dodge about that marine paradise, the Thousand Islands, forming the delta of Lake Ontario, and covered to this day