The troops then began to embark at sunrise, but by noon only twelve hundred were in boats.
Upstream they moved at a leisurely pace and went ashore for dinner.

The remainder of the three thousand, however, had failed to appear, and Smyth refused to invade unless he had the full number.

Altogether, four thousand troops, all regulars, had been sent to Niagara but many of them had been disabled by sickness.
General Smyth then called a council of war, shifted the responsibility from his own shoulders, and decided to delay the invasion.

Again he changed his mind and ordered the men into the boats two days later.
Fifteen hundred men answered the summons.

Again the general marched them ashore after another council of war, and then and there he abandoned his personal conquest of Canada.