The British were also busy at the other end of the lake, and on
September 9, 1814, Macdonough sailed his fleet of fourteen boats, ten of
which were small gunboats, and the largest of which, the Saratoga, was
merely a corvette, into Plattsburg Bay, and anchored there.
The abdication of Napoleon had enabled England to turn her undivided
attention to America, and one great force was sent against New Orleans,
while another was concentrated in Canada, for the purpose of invading
New York by way of Lake Champlain. On this latter enterprise, a force of
twelve thousand regulars started from Montreal early in August, while
the British naval force on the lake was augmented to nineteen vessels.
On September 11, this fleet got under way, and, certain of victory,
sailed into Plattsburg Bay and attacked Macdonough. A terrific battle
followed, in which the Saratoga had every gun on one side disabled and
had to wear around under fire in order to use those on the other side.
But three hours later, every British flag had been struck, and the land
force, seeing their navy defeated, retreated hastily to Canada. So
riddled were both squadrons that in neither of them did a mast remain
upon which sail could be made.
But the greatest victory of the war, the one which had the most
important and far-reaching consequences, had been won a year before, far
to the west, on the blue waters of Lake Erie, by Oliver Hazard Perry, at
that time only twenty-eight years of age.
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