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- 204 - Telescope - September - with his gunboats. So he specifically requested a Lakes assignment, and he received orders on February 18, 1813, to go to the Lakes. He was delighted to have a commission which guaranteed action, and left for the Northwest on February 22, accompanied by his younger brother. Proceeding to Lake Erie by way of Sackett's Harbor, Perry stopped off in Black Rock to inspect the ships there. Then he continued to Presqu'Isle, (now known as Erie), Pennsylvania, arriving there on March 27. At Presqu'Isle the fleet was well under way. Work had started in February under direction of a lake captain by the name of Daniel Dobbins. It had been Dobbins who, after the fall of Detroit, had made his way to Washington to impress upon the government the necessity of building a fleet on Lake Erie. He had received orders from President Madison to build the fleet, and had gotten men for the project. His shipwright was Noah Brown, who five years later built WALK-IN-THE-WATER, the Upper Lakes' first steam-boat.2 Brown arrived at Presqu'Isle at the end of February, and had the warships coming along nicely before Perry arrived. Coming along very nicely, indeed, for the difficulties of building ships at Presqu'Isle were almost infinite. The only material locally available was the lumber, and that was trees when the work began. Everything else had to be brought in from the East. Albany and Pittsburgh were the closest points at which the necessary materials were available. Some things were improvised. A British schooner caught in the ice and abandoned by her crew proved to be a windfall of useful supplies. The fleet was taking shape rapidly. But, of course, the British were preparing, too. Captain Robert Harlot Barclay waa the British commander on Lake Erie. He had arrived on June first from Lake Ontario. Barclay was an able officer. He had served under Nelson, and had lost an arm at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Barclay was dismayed with what he found. The ships of the British squad- ron were satisfactory to him. But he tried to impress upon his superior officer, Sir James Yeo, who was in command of the British fleet on Lake Ontario, that the manning of the Lake Erie fleet was deplorable.3 it was not the last time that Barclay was to appeal to Yeo for good seamen. But Barclay's manning situation never did impr ove. After assuming command of the British fleet, Barclay had Presqu'Isle scouted several times. He knew of the sand bar that blocked the entrance to the harbor. And he probably felt that he could not launch an effective waterborne attack against the shipyard without his largest ships. And they could not clear the bar. From Barclay's statement at his court-martial, and from some of the letters introduced at that trial, one learns that Barclay repeatedly asked his superior officers to send reinforcements of several hundred land soldiers. Combined with regulars from Proctor's army and about a thousand Indians, they could be used to wipe out the installation at Presqu'Isle. Barclay felt that a force of four or five hundred regulars plus Indians would be necessary to the success of the undertaking. Such a project could not be attempted without reinforcements. For while Proctor could spare the Indians easily, the assignment of the regulars would have left Fort Malden defenseless if Harrison should attack.4 Barclay's superiors did not respond to his requests, and he was forced to watch while the Americans built a force superior to his own. Part of that superior force was at Black Rock, imprisoned there by the guns of Fort Erie. Late in the spring an American force took Fort Erie, and the Niagara River was open for the ships to reach the lake safely. Their troubles were not over, however. The strong current in the Niagara made it necessary to drag the four little ships up to the lake with teams of oxen. Since he could do nothing about the force building at Presqu'Isle, Barclay decided to wait with his own fleet between there and Black Rock. He hoped to intercept the boats coming from Black Rock to join the rest of their fleet. But Perry, with characteristic