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As the year 1812 opened, Americans saw an opportunity to retaliate against the British for their arrogant treatment of our ships and seamen, and at the same time, expand our territory at their expense, while, coincidentally, eliminating any further possibility of frontier Indian trouble being instigated by British agents. Even though the hated Orders in Council were repealed by the British Parliament two days after Congress1 declaration of war, the American "fever11 of manifest destiny ran too strong to settle back in peace when such an apparently unequaled opportunity to conquer Canada was available. Britain was engaged in a life or death struggle with Napoleonic France and could spare only about six thousand troops to defend both Upper and Lower Canada. Americans generally believed that a large share of the meager 100,000 population of Canada at that time would welcome liberation from "British tyranny" and that it would be "a mere matter of marching" according to Thomas Jefferson. Henry Clay boasted that the Kentucky Militia alone could handle such an opportunity. By the time war was declared in June of 1812, a three-pronged attack had already been planned. The eastern move would be an attack on Montreal by an army which would assemble in Vermont and northern New York. The western phase would be an attack from Detroit on Upper Canada carried out by the Kentucky and Tennessee Militia under the leadership of Revo¬lutionary War hero General William Hull, who was then Governor of Michigan Territory. The central thrust was to be on the Niagara Frontier . Arthur Bowler, The American Failure at Queenston Heights", Buffalo Courier Express, May 25, 1975, p.10.