The winter of 1813 was remarkable for its uncommon severity, even in this comparatively mild climate: the extreme horrors of that season in North America will never be forgotten by those officers who were then employed off the Chesapeake, the blockade of which river was entrusted to Captain Barrie, who maintained it, under every privation, so successfully, that only one of the enemy’s cruisers escaped[1]. The commander-in-chief so appreciated his professional knowledge that he continued him there, notwithstanding orders from home to the contrary; and fortunate was it for his country that he did so. It is a fact which cannot be too generally known, that to the information he acquired we are indebted for those signal successes under the brave and lamented Major-General Ross, which ended in the capture of the American capital and public stores, to the amount, as the enemy themselves admitted, of more than 7,000,000 dollars[2].
Captain Barrie retained the command of the squadron employed off the Chesapeake from Sept. 1813, till the arrival of Rear-Admiral Cockburn in May, 1814, during which period several of the enemy’s armed vessels, and a very great number of coasting traders, were either captured or destroyed by the ships under his orders. The following extracts from the London Gazette contain an account of his subsequent exertions:
“On the 1st June, 1814, Captain Barrie, with the St. Lawrence schooner, and the boats of the Albion and Dragon, fell in with the flotilla standing down the Chesapeake, and retreated before it to wards the Dragon, then at anchor off Smith’s Point[3]. This ship having got under weigh, Captain Barrie wore with the schooner and boats; but the flotilla made off, and escaped into the Patuxent river. The Dragon being obliged to come again to an anchor, and the boats not being strong enough to attack the flotilla, Captain Barrie endeavoured to induce the enemy to separate his force, by detaching two boats to cut off a schooner under Cove Point; but the Americans suffered this vessel to be burnt in the face of the flotilla, without attempting to save her.
“On the 6th, the flotilla retreated higher up the Patuxent; and Captain Barrie being joined on the following day by the Loire frigate and Jaseur- ↑ The Adams frigate. She was afterwards destroyed by a force under his orders.
- ↑ See Vol. I, p. 524 et seq.
- ↑ Captain Barrie had been sent with the schooner and boats to act against the flotilla fitted out at Baltimore, under the orders of Commodore Barney.
