The _Chesapeake_ was at anchor in Boston harbor, in command of James Lawrence, when the British frigate _Shannon_ ran in and challenged her. Lawrence went out at once, and after a short, fierce fight was defeated and killed. As his men were carrying him below, mortally wounded, he cried, "Don't give up the ship!" words which Perry, as we have seen, afterwards put on his flag, and which his countrymen have never since forgotten.[1] [Footnote 1: On the naval war read Maclay's _History of the Navy_, Part Third; Roosevelt's _Naval War of 1812_; McMaster, Vol. IV., pp. 70-108.] %268. The British blockade the Coast.%--Never, in the course of her existence, had England suffered such a series of defeats as we inflicted on her navy in 1812 and 1813. The record of those years caused a tremendous excitement in Great Britain, all the vessels she could spare were sent over, and with the opening of 1814, the whole coast of the United States was declared to be in a state of blockade.[1] In New England, Eastport (Moose Island) and Nantucket Island quickly fell. A British force went up the Penobscot to Hampden, and burned the _Adams_. The eastern half of Maine was seized, and Stonington, in Connecticut, was bombarded. [Footnote 1: All except New England had been blockaded since 1812; and in 1813 the coast of Chesapeake Bay had been ravaged.] %269. Burning of Washington.%--Further down the coast a great fleet and army from Bermuda, under General Ross and Admiral Cockburn, came up the Chesapeake Bay, landed in Maryland, and marched to Washington. At Bladensburg, a little hamlet near the capital, the Americans made a feeble show of resistance, but soon fled; and about dark on an August night, 1814, a detachment of the British reached Washington, marched to the Capitol, fired a volley through the windows, entered, and set fire to the building. When the fire began to burn brightly, Ross and Cockburn led the troops to the President's house, which was sacked and burned. Next morning the torch was applied to the Treasury building and to the Departments of State and War. Several private houses and a printing office were also destroyed before the British began a hasty retreat to the Chesapeake.[1] [Footnote 1: Adams's _History_, Vol. VIII., Chaps. 5, 6; McMaster's _History_, Vol. IV., pp. 135-148; _Memoirs of Dolly Madison_, Chap. 8.] %270. Baltimore attacked.%--Once on the bay, the army was hurried on board the ships and carried to Baltimore, where for a day and a night they shelled Fort McHenry.[2] Failing to take it, and Ross having been killed, Cockburn reëmbarked and sailed away to Halifax. [Footnote 2: Francis S. Key, an American held prisoner on one of the British ships, composed the words of _The Star-Spangled Banner_ while watching the bombardment.]