At Baltimore, next, was their place of attack; But Baltimore drove them repeatedly back; There Rodgers they saw, and their terror was such, They saw they were damn'd when they saw him approach.
The forts were assail'd by the strength of their fleet, And the forts, in disorder beheld them retreat So shatter'd and crippled, so mangled and sore, That the tide of Patapsco was red with their gore.
Their legions by land no better succeeded-- In vain they manoeuvered, in vain they paraded, Their hundreds on hundreds were strew'd on the ground, Each shot from the rifles brought death or a wound. One shot from a buckskin completed their loss, And their legions no longer were headed by Ross!
Where they mean to go next, we can hardly devise, But home they would go if their master was wise.
Yet folly so long has directed their course; Such madness is seen in the waste of their force, Such weakness and folly, with malice combined, Such rancor, revenge, and derangement of mind, That, all things consider'd, with truth we may say, Both Cochrane and Cockburn are running away.[A]
[A] About this time, September, 1814, the admirals Cochrane and Cockburn quitted the coast of the United States in their respective flag ships.--_Freneau's note._
To their regent, the prince, to their master the king They are now on the way, they are now on the wing, To tell them the story of loss and disaster, One begging a pension, the other a plaister. Let them speed as they may, to us it is plain They will patch up their hulks for another campaign, Their valor to prove, and their havoc to spread When Wellington's army is missing or dead.
Captain Samuel C. Reid, of New-York, which sailed from Sandy Hook, on a cruise, the ninth of September, 1814, and on the 26th came to anchor in the road of Fayal, one of the Azores, or Western Islands, a neutral port belonging to the crown of Portugal. She anchored in that port for the purpose of procuring a supply of fresh water, when she was attacked by the british ship of war Plantaganet, of 74 guns, capt. Lloyd; the Rota frigate of 36 guns, and the armed national brig Carnation, of 18 guns, and many barges of considerable force, all of which she repulsed, with an immense slaughter, and was then scuttled and sunk by order of Captain Reid, to prevent her falling into the hands of the enemy.