At York (now Toronto) in Upper Canada a very different man was meanwhile preparing to checkmate Hull's 'north-western army' of Americans, which was threatening to invade the province. Isaac Brock was not only a soldier born and bred, but, alone among the leaders on either side, he had the priceless gift of genius. He was now forty-two, having been born in Guernsey on October 6, 1769, in the same year as Napoleon and Wellington. Like the Wolfes and the Montcalms, the Brocks had followed the noble profession of arms for many generations. Nor were the De Lisles, his mother's family, less distinguished for the number of soldiers and sailors they had been giving to England ever since the Norman Conquest. Brock himself, when only twenty-nine, had commanded the 49th Foot in Holland under Sir John Moore, the future hero of Corunna, and Sir Ralph Abercromby, who was so soon to fall victorious in Egypt. Two years after this he had stood beside another and still greater man at Copenhagen, 'mighty Nelson,' who there gave a striking instance of how a subordinate inspired by genius can win the day by disregarding the over-caution of a commonplace superior. We may be sure that when Nelson turned his blind eye on Parker's signal of recall the lesson was not thrown away on Brock. For ten long years of inglorious peace Brock had now been serving on in Canada, while his comrades in arms were winning distinction on the battlefields of Europe. This was partly due to his own excellence: he was too good a man to be spared after his first five years were up in 1807; for the era of American hostility had then begun. He had always been observant. But after 1807 he had redoubled his efforts to 'learn Canada,' and learn her thoroughly. People and natural resources, products and means of transport, armed strength on both sides of the line and the best plan of defence, all were studied with unremitting zeal. In 1811 he became the acting lieutenant-governor and commander of the forces in Upper Canada, where he soon found out that the members of parliament returned by the 'American vote' were bent on thwarting every effort he could make to prepare the province against the impending storm. In 1812, on the very day he heard that war had been declared, he wished to strike the unready Americans hard and instantly at one of their three accessible points of assembly-Fort Niagara, at the upper end of Lake Ontario, opposite Fort George, which stood on the other side of the Niagara river; Sackett's Harbour, at the lower end of Lake Ontario, thirty-six miles from Kingston; and Ogdensburg, on the upper St Lawrence, opposite Fort Prescott. But Sir George Prevost, the governor-general, was averse from an open act of war against the Northern States, because they were hostile to Napoleon and in favour of maintaining peace with the British; while Brock himself was soon turned from this purpose by news of Hull's American invasion farther west, as well as by the necessity of assembling