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48

His Excellency the Commander of the Forces has received an Official report from Major General Procter of the Affair which took place on the 5th October near the Moravian Village and He has in vain sought in it for grounds to palliate the report made to His Excellency by Staff Adjutant Roiffenotein[?] upon which the General Order of the 18th October was founded -- on the contrary, that statement remaining confirmed in all the principal events which marked that disgraceful day: the precipitancy with which the Staff-Adjutant retreated from the Field of Action pre- vented his ascertaining the loss sustained by the Division on that occasion, it also led him most grossly to exaggerate the Enemys Force and to misrepresent the conduct of the Indian Warriors who instead of retreating towards Machedesh as he had stated gallantly maintained the conflict under their Brave Chief Tecumseth and in their turn harrassed the American Army on its retreat to Detroit.

The subjoined Return states the loss the Right Division has sustained in the Action of the Fleet on Lake Erie on the 10th September and in the affair of the 5th October near the Moravian Village in the latter but very few appear to have been rescued by an honorable death from the ig- noniny of passing under the American Yoke nor are there many whose Wounds pleat in mitigation of this reproach.

The Right Division appears to have been incumbered with an unmanage- able load of unnecessary and forbidden Private Baggage, while the requi- site arrangements for the expeditious, and certain conveyance of the Ammunition and Provisions (the solo objects worthy of consideration,) appear to have been totally neglected, as well as all those ordinary measures resorted to by Officers of intelligence, to retard, and impede the advance of a pursuing Enemy. The result affords but too fatal a proof of this unjustifiable neglect. The Right Division had quitted Sandwich on its retreat, on the 26th. September having had ample time for every previous arrangement to facilitate and secure that movement; on the 2d October following the Enemy pursued by the same route and on the 4th. succeeded in Capturing all the Stores of the Division, and on the following day- attacked and defeated it, almost without a struggle.

With heartfelt pride and satisfaction The Commander of the Forces had lavished on the Right Division of this Army, that tribute of praise which was so justly due to its former gallantry and steady discipline. It is with poignant grief and mortification that He now beholds its well earned Laurels tarnished and its conduct calling loudly for reproach and censure -

The Commander of the Forces appeals to the genuine feelings of the British Soldier from whom He neither conceals the extent of the loss the Army has suffered, nor the far more to be lamented injury it has sustained, in its wounded Honor confident that but one sentiment will animate every breast and that sealous to wash out the stain, which by a most extra- ordinary and unaccountable infatuation has fallen on a fomerly deserving portion of the Army, all will vie to emulate the glorious achievements recently performed, by a small but highly spirited and well disciplined Division led by Officers possessed of enterprize, intelligence and gall- antry nobly evincing what British Soldiers can perform when susceptible of no fear but that of failing in the discharge of their duty.