ntinued slowly upwards, taking time to land parties
in many quarters, keeping the country in perpetual alarm. The
multiplicity and diverseness of its operations, the particular object
of which could at no moment be foreseen, made it impossible to combine
resistance. The harassment was necessarily extreme, and the sustained
suspense wearing; for, with reports continually arriving, now from one
shore and now from the other, each neighborhood thought itself the
next to be attacked. Defence depended wholly upon militia, hastily
assembled, with whom local considerations are necessarily predominant.
But while thus spreading consternation on either side, diverting
attention from his main objective, the purpose of the British admiral
was clear to his own mind. It was "to cut off the enemy's supplies,
and destroy their foundries, stores, and public works, by penetrating
the rivers at the head of the Chesapeake."

[Illustration: OUTLINE MAP OF CHESAPEAKE BAY AND RIVERS]

On April 16 an advanced division arrived off the mouth of the
Patapsco, a dozen miles from Baltimore. There others successively
joined, until the whole force was reported on the 22d to be three
seventy-fours, with several frigates and smaller vessels, making a
total of fifteen. The body of the fleet remained stationary, causing
the city a strong anticipation of attack; an impression conducing to
retain there troops which, under a reasonable reliance upon adequate
fortifications, might have been transferred to the probable scene of
operations, sufficiently indicated by its intrinsic importance. Warren
now constituted a light squadron of two frigates, with a half-dozen
smaller vessels, including some of those recently captured. These he
placed in charge of Cockburn and despatched to the head of the bay. In
addition to the usual crews there went about four hundred of the naval
brigade, consisting of marines and seamen in nearly equal numbers.
This, with a handful of army artillerists, was the entire force. With
these Cockburn went first up the Elk River, where Washington thirty
years before had taken shipping on his way to the siege of Yorktown.
At Frenchtown, notwithstanding a six-gun battery lately erected, a
landing was effected on April 29, and a quantity of flour and army
equipments were destroyed, together with five bay schooners. Many
cattle were likewise seized; Cockburn, in this and other instances,
offering to pay in British government bills, provided