ended in the defeat of the American army. Subsequently, he could
have read a newspaper at his residence in Georgetown by the light of
the burning public buildings at Washington, and he passed with
indignant heart the ruins left by the retreating army when, after a
night of frightful storm, they silently departed in a disorderly forced
march of thirty-five miles, to Upper Marlborough. He then knew what
any other city might expect upon which the "foul footsteps' pollution"
of the British might come.

The sorry appearance of the British army gave the Marlborough people
the idea that it had been defeated, and on the afternoon of the
following day Dr. Beanes and his friends celebrated a supposed victory.
Had they stayed in the noble old mansion that the worthy but irascible
doctor inhabited near Marlborough, "The Star-Spangled Banner" would
never have been written. Tempted by the balminess of a warm September
afternoon, however, the party adjoined to a spring near the house,
where, the negro servant having carried out the proper utensils, the
cool water was tempered with those ingredients which mingle their
congenial essences to make up that still seductive drink, a Maryland
punch. It warms the heart, but if used too freely it makes a man
hot-tempered, disputatious, and belligerent. Amid the patriotic
jollity, therefore, when three British soldiers, belated, dusty, and
thirsty, came to the spring on their way to the retreating army, their
boasting met with an incredulous denial, which soon led to their
summary arrest as chicken-stealers and public enemies. Confined in the
insecure Marlborough jail, one of them speedily escaped, and reached a
scouting-party of British cavalry, which, by order of Cockburn,
returned to Upper Marlborough, roused Dr. Beanes out of his bed at
midnight, and conveyed him to the British ships at Benedict's.

As soon as Key heard of the arrest of Dr. Beanes, one of his most
intimate friends, he hurried, under the protection of a flag of truce,
to the British fleet at the mouth of the Patuxent to arrange for his
release. John S. Skinner of Baltimore, then commissioner for exchange
of prisoners, accompanied him with his cartel ship.

When Key and Skinner reached the British fleet it was already on its
way up the Chesapeake Bay to the attack on Baltimore. Its destination
was too evident for Cockburn to allow Key to depart and give the alarm.
He was informed in the admiral's grimmest manner, tha