That Washington was likely to be the object of a hostile demonstration of some kind, was known to the Administration for months, but no efficient { 275}measures were taken to meet it. President Madison and General Armstrong, Secretary of War, did not like each other, and neither man was large enough not to let his personal feelings stand in the way of the country's interests. When the President urged that something should be done to avert the danger that threatened the capital, General Armstrong opposed the proposition with such abstruse reasons as that "militia were always most effective when first called out."
The only effective means of defence consisted of a small flotilla commanded by Commodore Joshua Barney, who sailed the waters of Chesapeake Bay for some weeks, continually annoying the English fleet. On the 1st of June he had an engagement with two schooners in the Patuxent, and drove them off with hot shot. A few days later, he was chased into St. Leonard's Creek, where he formed his boats in line of battle across the channel and engaged the enemy's barges, ultimately chasing them down to the ships. On the 10th he was attacked by twenty barges and two schooners; but he beat them all off, and so severely handled one of the schooners, an eighteen-gun vessel, that her crew ran her aground and abandoned her. On the 26th, with the help of a corps of artillery and a detachment of the marine corps, Barney attacked the { 276}whole squadron that was blockading him in the St. Leonard's, and after a fight of two hours compelled them to raise the blockade.
General Robert Ross, who had served in several campaigns under Wellington, and was with Sir John Moore when he fell at Corunna, was selected by the Duke to command an expedition against Washington. In July, with three thousand five hundred men, the finest regiments of Wellington's army, he sailed from Bordeaux for the Chesapeake, where he arrived in August, and was at once reenforced by a thousand marines from Cockburn's blockading squadron, and a hundred negroes from the neighboring plantations, who had been armed and drilled as British soldiers.
The District of Columbia and the adjacent counties of Virginia and Maryland had recently been formed into a military district, of which the command was given to General William H. Winder. His forces consisted of five hundred regulars and two thousand militia. On the approach of the enemy, Maryland and Virginia were hastily called upon for reënforcements of militia, and nearly three thousand came from Maryland; but the Virginians, from delay in receiving their flints, did not move till the fighting was over.