On the Chesapeake the Americans fared even worse. Early in the morning of the 3d of May, the British Admiral Cockburn sent a force in nineteen barges to destroy the town of Havre de Grace and ravage the country between it and Baltimore. A small battery had been erected for the defence of the place; but it was still dark when the enemy came, and the first notice the inhabitants had of his approach was given by the balls whistling through the houses. A panic and stampede ensued. But a few men ran to the battery, and fired at the barges till the British began to land, when they all joined in the flight, except an old man named O'Neill, who stood by one of the guns and continued to load and fire it till, in recoiling, it ran over his thigh and somewhat disabled him. He {171}still had strength to get away, armed himself with two muskets, and tried in vain to rally the militia, but finally was taken prisoner. He and his companions at the battery had killed three of the enemy and wounded two. As soon as the British forces had landed, fire was set to the houses not already destroyed by shells, while the sailors and marines went through them, smashing furniture, cutting open beds to feed the flames, insulting women, and spreading terror. One house only, filled with women, was spared after a special appeal to the Admiral. A church just outside of the town was gutted, farm-houses on the road to Baltimore were plundered, travellers were robbed, and bridges, furnaces, and mills were destroyed. The little villages of Georgetown and Fredericktown, Maryland, were the next spoil of the Admiral, who led the ravaging party in person. But he did not succeed in landing till his men in the boats had suffered severely from the fire of a battery manned by thirty-five militiamen, which was kept up steadily for half an hour. Not a house was left standing in either of the villages, and the enemy enriched themselves with all the plunder they could carry away. About this time Admiral Warren, who had issued {172}from Bermuda a proclamation declaring New York, Charleston, Port Royal, Savannah, and the whole of the Mississippi River under blockade--a paper blockade, at which both Americans and neutrals laughed--joined Admiral Cockburn, in the Chesapeake, and they determined to extend as far as possible the pillaging and burning of towns on the coast.