At the first appearance of the fleet Winder had sent off for the militia, but none had yet arrived. Six hundred from Virginia were reported close at hand--fourteen hundred from near Baltimore had reached Bladensburg, whither, also, was marching a picked regiment from the city itself, led by Pinckney, recently our Embassador to England. The whole country was filled with excited men, hurrying on foot or on horseback from one army and place to another--some without arms and others in citizens' dress, with only swords or pistols. The President and Cabinet were also in the saddle, riding by night and day, yet all without definite object. Rumor had swelled the invading force to twelve thousand men, but whether its destination was Washington, Baltimore, or Annapolis, no one could tell. While affairs were in this excited, disorderly state around Washington, great uncertainty reigned in the British camp. It was a hot day when the troops landed, and the sight of neat farm-houses, rich fields, and green pastures, seemed to increase the lassitude occasioned by their long confinement on ship-board, rather than invigorate them, and it required the exercise of rigid authority and unceasing care to keep them from straggling away to the cool shelter of trees. Weighed down with their knapsacks and three days' provisions, and sixty rounds of ball cartridge--without cavalry, and with only one six-pounder and two three-pounders drawn by a hundred seamen, this army of invasion took up its slow and cautious march inland on Sunday afternoon, and reached Nottingham that night. [Sidenote: Aug. 21.] They found the village wholly deserted--not a soul was left behind, while the bread remaining in the ovens, the furniture standing just as it had last been used, showed that the flight had been sudden and the panic complete. At this time the object of the expedition was the destruction of Barney's flotilla, which had so harassed and injured the lighter vessels of the fleet. Next morning at eight o'clock the army took up its line of March, and soon entered a cool, refreshing forest. But they had traversed scarce half its extent, when Ross was filled with anxiety and alarm by frequent and loud explosions, like the booming of heavy artillery, in the distance. Officers were immediately hurried off to ascertain the cause, who soon returned with the welcome and unexpected intelligence that the Americans were blowing up their own flotilla.