The only American warship on Lake Erie, the brig Adams, was not ready for service at the start of the war, and when the American army of Brigadier General William Hull abandoned its invasion of Canada, Adams was pinned down in Detroit by the British batteries at Sandwich on the Canadian side of the Detroit River.

Together with the brig Caledonia, which had been commandeered from the Canadian North West Company, she was boarded and captured near Fort Erie on 9 October, by American sailors and soldiers led by Lieutenant Jesse Elliot.

[4] Also present at Black Rock were the schooners Somers and Ohio and the sloop-rigged Trippe, which had all been purchased by the United States Navy and were being converted into gunboats.

[5] While the British held Fort Erie and the nearby batteries which dominated the Niagara River, all these vessels were pinned down and unable to leave Black Rock.

[6] Another problem was that a sand bar extended across the entrance to the harbor at Presque Isle, which would prove to make it very difficult to get newly constructed U.S. ships out to open water.

[7] Commodore Isaac Chauncey had been appointed to the command of the United States naval forces on the Great Lakes in September 1812.

He made one brief visit to Erie on 1 January 1813[8] where he approved Dobbins's actions and recommended collecting materials for a larger vessel, but then returned to Lake Ontario where he afterwards concentrated his energies.

Other than their rig and crude construction (such as using wooden pegs instead of nails because of shortages of the latter), the two brigs were close copies of the contemporary USS Hornet.

(The Americans were fortunate in that some of their largest cannon had been dispatched shortly before raiding parties under Rear-Admiral George Cockburn destroyed a foundry at Frenchtown on the eastern seaboard.

Having arranged for the defense of Presque Isle, he proceeded to Lake Ontario to obtain reinforcements of seamen from Commodore Isaac Chauncey.

[11] Barclay missed a rendezvous with Queen Charlotte at Point Abino and was forced to make the tedious journey to Amherstburg overland, arriving on 10 June.

[13] During July and August, Barclay received two small vessels, the schooner Chippeway and the sloop Little Belt, which had been reconstructed at Chatham[14] on the Thames River and attempted to complete the ship-rigged corvette HMS Detroit at Amherstburg.

Because the Americans controlled Lake Ontario and occupied the Niagara Peninsula in early 1813, supplies for Barclay had to be carried overland from York.

The shortage of supplies was also exacerbated by the British retreat of Fort George, which made it exceedingly difficult to send any other stores from Lower Canada.

[16] Barclay repeatedly requested men and supplies from Commodore James Lucas Yeo, commanding on Lake Ontario, but received very little.

The commander of the British troops on the Detroit frontier, Major-General Henry Procter, was similarly starved of soldiers and munitions by his superiors.

It has also been suggested that Barclay left to attend a banquet in his honour, or that he wished the Americans to cross the bar and hoped to find them in disarray when he returned.

His vessels first proceeded to Sandusky, where they received further contingents of volunteers from Major General William Henry Harrison's Army of the Northwest.

Hambleton suggested using the dying words of Perry's friend Captain James Lawrence of the frigate USS Chesapeake, "Don't Give up the Ship".

It is possible that Elliott was under orders to engage his opposite number, Queen Charlotte, and that Niagara was obstructed by the unhandy Caledonia,[24] but Elliot's actions would become a matter of dispute between him and Perry for many years.

[26] It was later alleged that Perry left Lawrence after the surrender, but he had actually taken down only his personal pennant, in blue bearing the motto, "Don't give up the ship".

The British squadron, consisting of two ships, two brigs, one schooner and one sloop, have this moment surrendered to the force under my command after a sharp conflict.

Meanwhile, 1,000 mounted troops led by Richard Mentor Johnson moved by land to Detroit, which also was recaptured without fighting on or about the same day.

In spite of exhortations from Tecumseh, who led the confederation of Indian tribes allied to Britain, Procter had already abandoned Amherstburg and Detroit and began to retreat up the Thames River on 27 September.

Harrison caught up with Procter's retreating force and defeated them on 5 October at the Battle of the Thames, where Tecumseh was killed, as was his second-in command and most experienced warrior, Wyandot Chief Roundhead.

This accounted for much of the Americans' successes on the Niagara peninsula in 1814 and also removed the threat of a British attack on Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Western New York.

However, an expedition in 1814 to recover Mackinac Island on Lake Huron failed, and the Americans lost eight of their smaller vessels and prizes.

It stands on a peninsula in Presque Isle Bay, where Niagara and Lawrence were built, stationed along with the rest of the American Squadron, and then scuttled after the war.

However, Detroit was built slowly, in part because of Bell's perfectionism, and indeed, it was the only purpose-built British warship constructed on Lake Erie during the war.