During the autumn and winter of this year, while Congress was shaken with conflicting parties, and deeper gloom and embarrassments were gathering round the administration, reports of conflicts ever and anon came from the bosom of our northern and southern wildernesses. Wilkinson was endeavoring to redeem his failures along the St. Lawrence, and Jackson was leading his gallant little band into the fastnesses of the Creek nation. Most of the national vessels were blockaded in our harbors and rivers, but still our bold little privateers were scouring the ocean in every direction. At this time, too, a single war vessel might be seen struggling in tempestuous seas off the stormy cape, on her way to the Pacific ocean to finish in disaster the most remarkable cruise found in our naval annals. Decatur, with his squadron, lay blockaded at New London, and it was said that every attempt to get to sea was thwarted by some disaffected persons, who burned blue lights at the mouth of the river to give information of his movements to the enemy. He wrote a letter to Mr. Jones, the Secretary of the Navy, on the subject, and a proposition was made in Congress to have it investigated, but it was dismissed as of trivial importance. Irritated at his inactivity, he challenged the Endymion and Statira to meet the United States and Macedonian in single combat, offering to reduce his force till they said it equalled their own. To this Commodore Hardy at first gave his consent, but afterwards withdrew it. If the challenge had been accepted, there is little doubt but that the Chesapeake would have been signally avenged. At one time Decatur was so confident of a fight, that he addressed his crew on the subject. Wilkinson soon after his retirement to winter quarters at French Mills, on Salmon river, resigned his command to General Izard, and proceeded to Washington to recruit his health. He here planned a winter campaign which for hardihood and boldness exceeded all his previous demonstrations. He proposed to pierce by different routes with two columns, each two thousand strong, to the St. Pierre, and sweeping the defenceless cantonments as he advanced, stop and occupy them or turn with sudden and resistless energy against the Isle Aux Noix, or go quietly back to his winter quarters again. At the same time, four thousand men were to cross the St. Lawrence, take Cornwall, fortify and hold it so as to destroy the communication between the two provinces. Nay, he proposed at one time to barrack in Kingston. The secretary, however, distrusting the feasibility of these plans, ordered him to fall back to Plattsburgh with his troops. Brown, in the mean time, was directed to take two thousand men and proceed to Sackett's Harbor, for the defence of our flotilla there, while young Scott was stationed at Buffalo. [Sidenote: 1813.]