P. 384: “The harbour is excellent ; ships of the line can lie close to the shore ; and a stone fort and block-house command the entrance. The St. Lawrence, 112 guns, and Psyche frigate, and two or three other ships of war, with several gun-boats, lay since the war in the harbour rotting, and in nearly a sinking state, until last year, when they were sold, on condemnation, for trifling sums. The dock-yard on the west side of Navy Bay, opposite Kingston, is furnished with every
p. 385: article of naval stores required to equip ships of war. Here are two seventy-four gun-ships, a frigate, a sloop of war, and eleven gun-boats, which have reposed on the stocks, and under cover, since the war. They are not planked, and men are employed to replace any piece of timber that may be decaying. It is said they might be sent to sea, completely equipped, in little more than a month. There are large storehouses, naval barracks, dwelling-houses, &c., at Navy Bay. The immense sums which were expended during the last war in Upper Canada arose, in a great measure, from the unaccountable ignorance of those who had the direction of sending the materials to Canada. Besides the vast expenditure of the commissariat department, which for a long time issued about 1200L daily, the preparations for naval warfare were managed in the most extravagant manner. The wood-work of the Psyche frigate was sent out from England to a country where it could be provided on the spot, in one tenth of the time necessary to carry it from Montreal to Kingston, and at one twentieth part of the expense. Even wedges were sent out; and, to exemplify more completely the information possessed at that time by the Admiralty, full supplies of water-casks were sent to Canada for the use of the ships of war on Lake Ontario, where it was only necessary to throw a bucket overboard, to draw up water of the very best quality.”
Source
John MacGregor. British America. Vol. II. London, 1833. Digitized by Google.
