Whilst Major-General Brock impatiently lingered on the Niagara frontier, so as to give time to the legislature to assemble at York, he dispatched Colonel Proctor, of the 41st regiment, with such reinforcements as could be spared, to assume the command at Amherstburg.

General Hull, after crossing to Sandwich, remained for some time inactive, under pretext of making preparations for the reduction of Amherstburg, or Malden, as the Americans called it, which lay but eighteen miles below him, and was not in a condition to withstand a regular siege.

During the delay, three detachments of his army were on three successive days beaten back by a small number of the 41st regiment and a few Indians.

Michilimakinack had fallen since the invasion, and the Indians from that quarter were flocking to the British standard.

Our naval force being superior on the lake, Colonel Proctor pushed over to Brownstown, an American village, about 25 miles from Detroit, and nearly opposite to Amherstburg, a small detachment of the 41st regiment, and some Indians under the celebrated Tecumseh, who, with 70 of the latter, awaited in ambush near that village a party of 200 Americans, under Major Van Home, on their march[61] from Detroit to the River Raisin, (40 miles south of Detroit,) to meet a detachment of volunteers from Ohio, with a convoy of provisions for Hull's army.