Tag Archives: George Cockburn

Admiral George Cockburn: “Commodore Barney has again come down with his Flotilla to the Neighbourhood of the Potomac.”

Around Maryland, Baltimore at Sea, Letters, War of 1812, , ,
HMS Dragon off Endoume, Marseille, July 24, 1823, courtesy WIkimedia.
HMS Dragon off Endoume, Marseille, July 24, 1823, courtesy WIkimedia.

On May 30, 1814, Rear Admiral George Cockburn wrote to Captain Robert Barrie on board the HMS Dragon with news that the Chesapeake Flotilla was headed down the Bay towards the Potomac. Cockburn asked Barrie to search for the Flotilla and, if he couldn’t find it, to instead “do any Mischief on either Side of the Potomac which you may find within your Power.”

30 May 1814

My dear Sir

Subsequent to our Conversation of last Night I have received Intelligence that Commodore Barney has again come down with his Flotilla to the Neighbourhood of the Potomac.

The Man who brings the Information states that he saw him the Day before yesterday a few Miles to the Northward of the Cape Lookout— I therefore send You the Auxiliary Force I before intended, but I must beg of you to make use of it to the Northward instead of the Southward by sending it with your own Boats, Tender & ca. to examine St. Jerome’s Creek & to the Patuxent, and covering them at such Distance as you may judge advisable with the Dragon, taking also to your Assistance the St. Lawrence if on communicating with her Commander you find so employing her will not be likely to clash with Promises or Arrangements made with the Blacks landed from her the other Day.

Should you neither gain Information nor see anything of the American Flotilla in or on this Side of the Patuxent, I would have you cause St. Mary’s & Yeucomoco to be looked into, & you may do any Mischief on either Side of the Potomac which you may find within your Power, if this Information which I have received turn out to be incorrect, I can only say in your Operations to the Northward of Point Look out or to the Westward of it, You will consider yourself at full Liberty to act as Circumstances may point out to You as being most advisable for the Service.

The high Confidence I have in your Zeal and Abilities assuring me that I cannot do better than Point out to You the Object, and leave the Rest to your Management, but should you not be able to annoy the Enemy in that Direction we will still hold in View our intended Attack on Cherrystone Creek and perhaps a further Attempt on the other Side opposite to it. The Jaseur has taken another Schooner loaded with Salt Fish, she is gone up to the upper Part of the Bay near Hooper’s Straights— What Capt. Watts has in View I know not.

Let me hear from you as occasion may offer. I am Dr. Sir With much Truth

Yours most faithfully
G. C.-

This letter is cross-posted from the Blog of 1812 courtesy the Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum.

Admiral Cochrane: “Situations where Landings can be made to do them the greatest injury and facilitate the Escape of their Negroes”

Beyond Baltimore, War of 1812, , ,
Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane, courtesy .
Sir Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane, courtesy .

On May 27, 1814, Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane wrote to Rear Admiral George Cockburn, describing the need to pay for intelligence and ensure that British attacks could be directed to “do them the greatest injury and facilitate the Escape of their Negroes.”

Private and Confidential

Asia 27 May 1814 Bermuda

My dear Sir,

As I daily look for the arrival of the Marines and it being probable from the lateness of the Season that nothing equal to what was intended can take place, the Troops being required for the Defence of Canada, I must therefore confine myself to minor objects, attainable by a force not exceeding 1,500 Men.

I have therefore to beg that you will endeavor to procure the most correct information possible of the Force and position of the Enemy within the Chesapeake and to the Southward with the Situations where Landings can be made to do them the greatest injury and facilitate the Escape of their Negroes— such information can be only come at by paying for it—you have therefore authority to do so.

It is of material consequence to know exactly their military force at the different Stations, as it may be necessary to make distant and partial attacks to draw off their force from the point of real attack. You will therefore see what consequence it is to obtain the best information on those heads which may be difficult unless you can find some enterprising characters who run all risks for money, with which you may assure them of being well remunerated if their intelligence is found correct.

Adieu my dear sir, ever most sincerely Yrs
A Cochrane—

This letter is cross-posted from the Blog of 1812 courtesy the Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum.

Admiral Alexander Cochrane: “Let the Landings you may make be more for the protection of the desertion of the Black population than with a view to any other advantage”

Around Maryland, Slavery, War of 1812, ,

On April 2 1814, Vice-Admiral Alexander Cochrane issued a proclamation to attract black recruits from the men held in slavery on farms and plantations across the Chesapeake region. The proclamation was intended to help fulfill his plans (mentioned in his March 10 letter to George Prevost) to combine the “Recruits I expect to raise from the Negroes” with the British Marines and “Keep the Enemy in a constant alarm.”

In The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832, historian Alan Taylor observed how the carefully worded proclamation avoided any direct mention of slavery but still emphasized the “FREE” status of any who fled to the British–allowing Cochrane to deny any charge of promoting a slave revolt. Cochrane sent 1,000 printed copies of the proclamation to Cockburn for distribution around the Chesapeake, an effort aided by local and national newspapers that reprinted the proclamation in full. Taylor quotes orders from Cochrane to Taylor identifying the emancipation of enslaved people as a central goal of the 1814 campaign writing:

1895 photo by George H. Craig NSARM acc. no. 1988-387, NSARM neg. N-728.
1895 photo by George H. Craig NSARM acc. no. 1988-387, NSARM neg. N-728.

“Let the Landings you may make be more for the protection of the desertion of the Black population than with a view to any other advantage… The great  point to be attained is the cordial support of the Black population. With them properly armed & backed with 20,000 British Troops, Mr. Maddison will be hurled from his throne.”

Many of the black recruits and families that took advantage of the British offer were eventually resettled in Halifax, Nova Scotia. According to Taylor, around 1,200 black refugees arrived between 1813 and 1814 and another 1,611 refugees arrived between April 1815 and October 1818. Among the enslaved people from the Chesapeake who made it to Canada was thirteen-year-old Gabriel Hall (pictured above in an 1895 photograph) who escaped from Walter Wells’s Calvert County farm in July 1814. Learn more about Gabriel Hall from the Maryland State Archives or read on for a transcript of Cochrane’s proclamation.

Indiana University, VAC2927
Indiana University, VAC2927

PROCLAMATION OF VICE ADMIRAL SIR ALEXANDER F.I. COCHRANE, R.N.

By the Honorable Sir ALEXANDER COCHRANE, K.B. Vice Admiral of the Red, and Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s Ships and Vessels, upon the North American Station …. &c, &c, &c.

A PROCLAMATION.

WHEREAS, it has been represented to me, that many Persons now resident in the UNITED STATES, have expressed a desire to withdraw therefrom, with a view of entering into His Majesty’s Service, or of being received as Free Settlers into some of His Majesty’s Colonies.

This is therefore to Give Notice,

That all those who may be disposed to emigrate from the UNITED STATES will, with their Families, be received on board His Majesty’s Ships or Vessels of War, or at the Military Posts that may be established, upon or near the Coast of the UNITED STATES, when they will have their choice of either entering into His Majesty’s Sea or Land Forces, or of being sent as FREE settlers to the British Possessions in North America or the West Indies, where they will meet with due encouragement.

Given under my Hand at Bermuda, this 2nd day of April, 1814, ALEXANDER COCHRANE.

By Command of the Vice Admiral, WILLIAM BALHETCHET. GOD SAVE THE KING.

On February 23, 1814, Rear Admiral George Cockburn sailed his flagship the HMS Albion into Lynnhaven Bay marking the return of the British military campaign to the Chesapeake.

The British attacks on coastal Maryland and Virginia towns that earned Cockburn a reputation for brutality in 1813 paused when most of the fleet sailed for Bermuda in September. Returned from the Caribbean after a tour of the Atlantic blockading squadrons, Rear Admiral Cockburn soon resumed the aggressive raids and anticipated grander actions under his new, more aggressive commander in chief Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane.