Macdonough as he lay prostrate and wounded, bravely beating off the soldiers who refused his cry for quarter. The next instant the barbarous act was avenged by a soldier, who shot him dead in his footsteps. The troops, however, courageously maintained the advantage they had gained, till daylight, when some cartridges in a stone building near by, catching fire by accident, exploded with a tremendous concussion, lifting the platform of the bastion from its bed, and hurling the shattered and affrighted occupants of it to the ground. A disorderly flight followed, and the British troops withdrew to their encampment. General Drummond, however, did not abandon the siege, but sat down before the fort with a stronger determination than ever to reduce it. General Gaines being wounded by a shell, now retired to Buffalo, leaving Ripley in command. When the state of affairs was reported to General Brown, he saw at once that another and heavier assault would soon be made, and though his wounds were yet unhealed, repaired to the fort, and assumed the command. [Sidenote: Sept. 2.] The brave Jessup with his arm in a sling, and still suffering from his wounds, volunteered his services, and every preparation was made for a desperate resistance. Owing to the sickness of Commodore Chauncey the co-operation expected from the fleet had entirely failed, so that the brilliant victories of the summer, on the Niagara frontier, had not advanced the original plan of the campaign, and the American army instead of marching to Burlington Heights, and thence on Kingston, was compelled to stand on the defensive. Commodore Chauncey was a gallant and skillful commander, and had reduced his crews to a state of discipline rarely equaled. But he lay sick in Sackett's Harbor till the 2d of July, and then was carried on board his ship. His arrival near [Sidenote: Aug. 5.] Niagara was too late to be of any service to the army shut up in Fort Erie, and he cruised in the lake, blockading Yeo in Kingston, and striving in vain to bring him to an engagement. It was no fault of his that Ontario was not signalized by a victory equal to that on Lake Erie.