But while these events were passing around Niagara--in the interval between the assault on Fort Erie by Drummond and the successful sortie of Brown--a calamity overtook the country, which fortunately resulted in producing more harmony of feeling among the people, and strengthened materially the administration. Washington was taken and sacked by the enemy. The overthrow of Napoleon and his banishment to Elba, enabled England to send over more than 30,000 troops, which were soon on our sea-board or in the British Provinces. New England no longer remained excluded from the blockade, and the whole Atlantic sea-board was locked up by British cruisers. The Constitution, the year previous, after a cruise in which she captured but a single war schooner and a few merchantmen, was chased into Marble Head, from whence she escaped to Boston. The blockading of our other large ships, and the destruction of the Essex about the same time in the Bay of Valparaiso, had left us without a frigate at sea. The Adams, a sloop of twenty-eight guns, was the largest cruiser we had afloat. Hitherto the enemy had been content with blockading our seaports, and making descents on small towns in their neighborhood, but as the summer advanced, rumors arrived of the preparation of a large force, destined to strike a heavy blow at some of our most important cities. To meet this new danger the President addressed a circular letter to the States, calling on them to hold in readiness 93,500 militia. Fearing that Washington or Baltimore might be the points at which the enemy would first strike, the tenth military district was erected, as mentioned before, and General Winder, recently released by exchange, given the command of it. The whole sea-board was in a state of alarm--even Massachusetts caught the infection, and preparations were immediately made to defend her seaports and protect her coast. The militia of the different States were called out--Governor Barbour, of Virginia, garrisoned Norfolk, the intrenching tools were busy night and day around Baltimore, Providence voted money for fortifications, Portland shipmasters formed themselves into a company of sea fencibles, and gun-boats were collected in New York and all the great northern ports. The notes of alarm and preparation rang along the coast from Maine to Louisiana, and before the mysterious shadow of the gigantic coming evil, party animosities sunk into insignificance. Released from her Continental struggle, England, with her fleets that had conquered at Aboukir, Trafalgar, and Copenhagen, and her troops fresh from the fields of Spain, had resolved to fall upon us in her power, and crushing city after city, leave us at length without a seaport, from the Merrimack to the Mississippi. Even the brilliant victories of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane could not dispel the terror inspired by this gathering of her energies.