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In November 1812 the 24-gun Madison was launched at Sackets Harbor, New York. The Americans would now control Lake Ontario in the spring unless the British built at least one new warship.
In mid-December 1812 Acting Deputy Quartermaster General Captain Andrew Gray wrote Governor General Sir George Prevost asking permission to build a ship at York to carry 30 guns. A week later Prevost approved Gray’s request and appointed Thomas Plucknett, “an experienced Officer in the Kings Naval Yards,” to build new warships at York and Kingston. While at York Gray chose a building site for the new ship. He planned to personally supervise shipbuilding at Kingston and send Plucknett to York to manage things there.
Plucknett himself had recruited over 120 shipwrights and carpenters at Quebec and Montreal. When they arrived at Kingston at the end of December, 50 men remained to build a 22-gun ship and the rest went with Plucknett to York.
The new ship at York would be armed with twenty-six 32-pound carronades and four 18-pound long guns. It would be the most powerful warship on Lake Ontario.
Gray told Prevost that the new ship at Kingston would be launched in April 1813. However, he heard there were “some difficulties” at York which might delay that ship’s completion.
Difficulties there were. Plucknett inspected the site Gray chose to build the new ship, now named Sir Isaac Brock, and he did not like what he saw. That place was too level and too shallow off shore to launch the Brock in the usual way. Gray’s solution was to build the ship on a wooden platform 100 feet wide, 25 feet high at the shoreline and extending 500 feet offshore. Plucknett travelled to Fort George and informed Gray’s superior, Acting Quartermaster General Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Myers, that it “would be highly imprudent and dangerous to build the Ship on it.” Plucknett found a better place a “short distance higher up the Harbour.” He then directed the workmen to abandon Gray’s site and begin work at the new location.
Two weeks after meeting with Plucknett at Fort George, Myers and Royal Engineer Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Bruyeres visited York to see how things were going. They were not going well. Apparently both men had concerns before they arrived but once there they found “a very unpromising prospect” that the Brock would be ready in time and the reason was Plucknett. While they were not competent to determine if Plucknett was a “regular ship builder or not” they definitely knew that “he wants system and arrangement.” They recommended that Prevost replace Plucknett with someone “whose judgment and skill may be relied on as a builder.” That never happened.
By mid-March it was clear that the launch of the Sir Isaac Brock would not occur until mid-May at the earliest. Plucknett blamed the foreman, John Dennis. Dennis would have been discharged if not for Assistant Quartermaster General Alexander Clerk at York who recognized that the real problem was Plucknett and took steps to retain Dennis.
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