and, mounting all the cannon that
could be gathered on such short notice, prepared to dispute the
enemy's passage. When the British fleet hove in sight, they were
greeted with a storm of shot from the unsuspected batteries; and they
recoiled in confusion. Practised American hunters lined the woody
shores, and picked off the British sailors with musket-balls. For some
time the fleet was thus checked in its progress. Finally the admiral
determined that only by a bold dash could he escape; and accordingly,
massing his vessels and concentrating his fire on the chief battery,
he dashed past, and rejoined his superior officer, Cockburn, not
without paying dearly for his exploit at Alexandria.

While the British were thus devastating the shores of Chesapeake Bay,
they cast more than one longing look toward the thriving city of
Baltimore, which, by its violent patriotism, had done much to urge on
the war. From the shipyards of Baltimore came more than one stout
naval vessel that had forced the enemy to haul down his colors. But
that which more than any thing else aroused the hatred of the British
was the share Baltimore took in fitting out and manning those swift
privateers, concerning whose depredations upon British commerce we
shall have something to say in a later chapter. "It is a doomed town,"
said Vice-admiral Warren. "The truculent inhabitants of Baltimore must
be tamed with the weapons which shook the wooden turrets of
Copenhagen," cried the editor of a great London paper. But,
nevertheless, Baltimore did not fall before the invader, although for
some time the army and navy of the enemy were united in the attempt to
bring desolation upon the obnoxious city.

[Illustration: Planning the Attack.]

After the fall of Washington, the depredations of the British along
the shores of Chesapeake Bay redoubled, and the marauding expeditions
thus employed were really feelers thrown out to test the strength of
the defenses of Baltimore. That the marauders found some opposition,
is evident from a passage in the journal of a British officer. "But
these hasty excursions, though generally successful, were not always
performed without loss to the invaders." On one of these expeditions,
Sir Peter Parker, captain of the frigate "Menelaus," lost his life. He
had been ordered down to the mouth of the bay just after the fall of
Washington. "I must first have a frolic with the Yankees," said he.
And accordingly, after a jovial dinner aboar