y, numbering about 14,000 men, were sent
to America. But they were not commanded by any of the generals who had
made their names illustrious in that war, and did not effect so much as
had been expected. On August 19 and 20 General Ross landed with 5,000
men at the mouth of the Patuxent in Chesapeake Bay. On the 24th he
defeated a large body of militia under General Winder at Bladensburg,
and occupied Washington, where he burned all the public buildings.
However deplorable such an act may seem, it is well to note that it was
a fair and even merciful reprisal after the action of the Americans at
York and Newark. Ross did not attempt to retain the city, but evacuated
it on the next day and re-embarked on the 30th. On September 12 he
landed near Baltimore, but was immediately killed in an attack on the
town. The attack had to be abandoned because it proved impossible to
obtain adequate support from the fleet, and the troops returned to the
ships on the 15th.

On September 1 Prevost invaded New York State by Lake Champlain. He
advanced against Plattsburg, which he bombarded on the 11th, but his
flotilla was defeated by an American flotilla during the bombardment,
and he felt himself compelled to retreat into Canada. At the end of the
year Sir Edward Pakenham took command of a force operating against New
Orleans, but on January 8, 1815, he was defeated and killed by the
American forces under the future president, Andrew Jackson. No
expedition was ever worse planned than this; the veterans of the
Peninsula were mowed down by a withering fire, and, losing confidence in
their leaders, forfeited their reputation for invincible courage in
attack. The fighting, however, was desperate while it lasted, and was
compared by one engaged in it with the storm of Badajoz, and the deadly
charges at Waterloo. It was but a small compensation for these failures
that the British were able to annex a strip of territory belonging to
the State of Maine. On the sea no general engagement took place, nor was
there any naval duel so famous as that between the _Shannon_ and the
_Chesapeake_ in the previous year. The Americans lost two of their best
frigates, but, with crews largely composed of British sailors, captured
several British ships of war.

[Pageheading: _THE TREATY OF GHENT._]

As early as January, 1814, advances had been made towards negotiations
for peace, but they were not actually begun till August 6. In the course
of a few days a seri