In his epistle, I remind you, the burning of Washington is but the apocalyptic mise en scène for the final burying of Andrew’s inconsistent and equivocal, but prevailing, animus against the American line of his own descent, an animus that peaked at Tecumseh’s death. After that explosion and tornado on August 25, his head is clear but neutral: the odd emotion of patriotism is still there, but still nascent and tempered; he would not now snatch from the U.S. Navy History’s pen and Fame’s palm (he has conveniently “mislaid” them, to Cockburn’s chagrin; they are in my cottage on Bloodsworth Island; one day they shall be yours), but he would not yet restore them, either.
He has encouraged General Ross to withdraw. Guessing Cockburn’s eagerness to follow up the Washington triumph with a quick and wholesale attack on Baltimore, he casts about now for ways to forestall that move; he is not yet ready to arrange for British defeats, but he is prepared to do what he can to counter further victories. He anticipates, correctly, that when news of the Washington expedition reaches London and Ghent (in early October) the U.S. peace commissioners will incline to accept the British ultimatum that the Indians be restored at least to their prewar boundaries, nullifying Harrison’s defeat of Tecumseh; indeed, they will be relieved that the British are not insisting that the Indians themselves send commissioners to the Hotel des Pays-Bas. As Andrew puts it, he has interred his father; time now to tend the grave and look to a fit memorial, not to drive a stake through the old man’s heart.
He is relieved therefore to find that Cochrane and Ross are already of a mind to leave the Chesapeake for the present. As the fleet works its way down the Patuxent (old Dr. Beanes has been seized and put in irons on the Tonnant for arresting those British stragglers), Cochrane announces that while he has every intention not only to attack but to destroy “that nest of pirates… that most democratic town and… the richest in the union,” whose fleet of privateers has sunk or captured no fewer than 500 British ships since 1812, he will not do it until midautumn, when “the sickly season” in the Chesapeake is past. They will rendezvous off Tangier Island with Captain Parker’s Menelaus and Captain Gordon’s task force from the Potomac; reprovisioned, they will dispatch Admiral Cockburn and the prize tobacco to Bermuda and take the army on up to Rhode Island. Newport once captured, they will rest and wait for reinforcements. Then, when the Americans will have frantically dispersed their forces to defend New York and New England, they will sweep back to destroy Baltimore, maybe Charleston too, and end their campaign at New Orleans. That should wind up the war, even without further successes on the Niagara Frontier.
Andrew is delighted. The trip north will give him time to make his own plans; from Newport it should be easy to slip away to Castines Hundred; perhaps by late October a treaty will be signed. Ross agrees with Cochrane; Admiral Cockburn cannot prevail against them. On September 4 the orders are given: thirteen ships to remain on patrol in the Chesapeake; the main body of warships and transports to re-rendezvous off Rhode Island; Cockburn to join them there after his errand in Bermuda — all this as soon as they are provisioned at Tangier Island. There the fleet anchors, on the 6th. A dispatch boat is sent off to London with Cochrane’s reports of the Washington victory and his plan to move north. Gordon’s ships are still working down the Potomac with their prizes from Alexandria; the Menelaus arrives from up the Bay with Sir Peter Parker in a box, shot by an Eastern Shore militiaman during a diversionary raid. (In London, Byron will merrily set about composing his Elegy.) The army disembarks for the night to camp on a Methodist meeting ground presided over by Joshua Thomas, the “Parson of the Islands.” Next morning early, Admiral Cockburn grumblingly weighs anchor and points the Albion south toward the Virginia Capes.
And then, Henry, at midmorning the whole fleet makes sail, not for Block Island and Newport, but back up the Bay, toward Baltimore!
