It then contained above two hundred houses, many of brick, and upwards of 1,200 inhabitants.

In the rear of the fort was an extensive common, skirted by boundless and almost impenetrable forests.

We learn from Morse's American Geography, on the acknowledged authority of Governor Hull, that Fort Detroit, in 1810, was a regular work of an oblong figure, "covering about an acre of ground.

The parapets were about twenty feet in height, built of earth and sods, with four bastions, the whole surrounded with pallisadoes, a deep ditch, and glacis.

It stood immediately back of the town, and had strength to withstand a regular siege, but did not command the river." And as the American government had been for some time secretly preparing for war, it may be safely inferred, that in the meanwhile this fort had been rather strengthened than permitted to fall to decay; and that it was at least as tenable in 1812 as when Governor Hull, two years before, gave the preceding description of its defences.