He confides to Andrée that Cockburn’s confidence in him is not increased by this episode, and while he does not report any change in his own attitude, he sees that he must do something to reestablish his credibility. Cockburn grants his request to make an intelligence-gathering visit to the capital, charging him specifically to report whether Madison and Monroe have managed to prod Secretary Armstrong into any real measures of defense since the receipt of Andrew’s letter: if not, then either the Americans still doubt that Washington is the target, or they plan not to resist its capture, or their plans mean nothing. If on the other hand real defense measures are at last being taken, their strength must be expertly assessed before Ross and Cochrane’s arrival.
Where are you, Henry?
On August 1, as Andrew’s false true warning is postmarked from New York, Madison’s Peace Commission (now in London) are being depressed by the tremendous joint celebration there of Napoleon’s exile to Elba, the 100th anniversary of the Hanoverian accession, and the 16th of Lord Nelson’s victory on the Nile: in the mock naval battles accompanying the festivities, the “enemy vessels” ignominiously vanquished include a significant number of “American” along with the customary “French.” On August 3, while Andrew broods at Tobacco Stick, Admiral Cochrane’s reinforced Bermuda fleet weighs anchor for the Chesapeake. On the 8th, as Andrew makes his way unchallenged into Washington, the British and American treaty negotiators meet for the first time in the Hotel des Pays-Bas in Ghent, each to confront the other with unacceptable demands, and each hoping that news of fresh successes in the fighting will weaken the other’s bargaining position. Why do you not appear, and we make plans together?
Andrew goes first to Kalorama, to advise Ruth Barlow (through an old servant-friend from the rue de Vaugirard; Ruth will not receive him) to place her valuables and herself under the diplomatic immunity of her former tenant, the French Ambassador Sérurier. By the simple expedient of installing himself then in the lobby of McKeowin’s Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, where orders and counterorders come and go like transient guests, he quickly ascertains that no serious measures of defense have been accomplished. Of the 1,000 regulars and 15,000 militia authorized by Armstrong for the district, only 500 of the former and 1,600 of the latter actually exist, most of them in Baltimore, which the secretary still believes to be the British target. The rest, but for Barney’s flotilla, are scattered all over southern Maryland; the city is virtually open. Only Madison and Monroe appear to believe that Washington is truly in danger; they seem about to take its defense into their own hands, but as of the Perseid meteor shower on August 12, they have not yet done so.
Thus Andrew’s report to Cockburn, Cochrane, and General Ross aboard the
