In September of the following year another British division harassed the coast of Maine, first capturing Eastport and then landing at Belfast, Bangor, and Castine, and extorting large ransoms in money and supplies. New England was wildly alarmed. In a few weeks all of Maine east of the Penobscot had been invaded, conquered, and formally annexed to New Brunswick, although two counties alone might easily have furnished twelve thousand fighting men to resist the small parties of British sailors who operated in leisurely security. The people of the coastwise towns gave up their sheep and bullocks to these rude trespassers, cut the corn and dug the potatoes for them, handed over all their powder and firearms, and agreed to finish and deliver schooners that were on the stocks. Cape Cod was next to suffer, for two men-of-war levied contributions of thousands of dollars from Wellfleet, Brewster, and Eastham, and robbed and destroyed other towns. Farther south another fleet entered Long Island Sound, bombarded Stonington, and laid it in ruins. The pretext for all this havoc was a raid made by a few American troops who had crossed to Long Point on Lake Erie, May 15, 1814, and had burned some Canadian mills and a few dwellings. The expedition was promptly disowned by the American Government as unauthorized, but in retaliation the British navy was ordered to lay waste all towns on the Atlantic coast which were assailable, sparing only the lives of the unarmed citizens. Included in the British plan of campaign for 1814 was a coastal attack important enough to divert American efforts from the Canadian frontier. This was why an army under General Ross was loaded into transports at Bermuda and escorted by a fleet to Chesapeake Bay. The raids against small coastwise ports, though lucrative, had no military value beyond shaking the morale of the population. The objective of this larger operation was undecided. Either Baltimore or Washington was tempting. But first the British had to dispose of the annoying gunboat flotilla of Commodore Joshua Barney, who had made his name mightily respected as a seaman of the Revolution and who had never been known to shake in his shoes at sight of a dozen British ensigns. He had found shelter for his armed scows, for they were no more than this, in the Patuxent River, but as he could not hope to defend them against a combined attack by British ships and troops he wisely blew them up. This turn of affairs left a fine British army all landed and with nothing else to do than promenade through a pleasant region with nobody to interfere. The generals and admirals discussed the matter and decided to saunter on to Washington instead of to Baltimore. In the heat of August the British regiments tramped along the highways, frequently halting to rest in the shade, until they were within ten miles of the capital of the nation. There they found the American outposts in a strong position on high ground,