"Did that mean that he wouldn't do it even if he knew they would hang him if he refused?" asked Elsie.
"Yes, that was just it," said her father. "Having accomplished what he wished to do at Eastport—securing it to his country, as he thought—leaving eight hundred troops to hold it, Hardy sailed away along the coast of Maine and Massachusetts, spreading alarm as he went. But the people prepared to meet his expected attack—manning their forts and arming them. When Sherbrook and Griffith sailed, they intended to stop at Machias and take possession of it; but falling in with the brig Rifleman, and being told by its commander that the United States corvette John Adams had gone up the Penobscot, they made haste to the mouth of that river to blockade her. They passed up the Green Island channel and entered the fine harbor of Castine on the morning of the 1st of September. On the edge of the water south of the village was the half moon redoubt called Fort Porter, armed with four twenty-pounders and two fieldpieces, and manned by about forty men under Lieutenant Lewis, of the United States army. At sunrise Lewis was called upon to surrender. He saw that resistance would be impossible, so resolved to flee. He gave the enemy a volley from his twenty-pounders, then spiked them, blew up the redoubt, and with the fieldpieces he and the garrison fled over the high peninsula to its neck and escaped up the Penobscot. Then the British took possession of the town and control of the bay.
"The John Adams had just come home from a successful cruise, and coming into Penobscot Bay in a thick fog had struck a rock and received so much injury that it was found necessary to lay her up for repairs. They did their best to take her out of harm's way, but it was with difficulty they could keep her afloat until she reached Hampden, a few miles below Bangor. Some of her crew were disabled by sickness, and so she was almost helpless.
"Sherbrook, the commanding officer of the British vessels, was told all this as soon as he landed at Castine, and he and Griffith, commander of the fleet, at once sent a land and naval force to seize and destroy the John Adams. The expedition sailed in the afternoon of the day of the arrival at Castine. The people along the Penobscot were not at all inclined to submit to the British if they could possibly escape doing so. On the day the British sailed up the river word was sent by express to Captain Morris, and he at once communicated with Brigadier-General John Blake, at his home in Brower, opposite Bangor, asking him to call out the militia immediately. Blake lost no time in assembling the tenth Massachusetts division, of which he was commander. That evening he rode down to Hampden, where he found Captain Morris busy with his preparations for defence. He had taken the heavy guns of his ship to the high right bank of the Soadabscook, fifty rods from the wharf, and placed them in battery there so as to command the river approaches from below.
"The next morning he and Blake held a consultation on the best methods of defence, citizens of Bangor and Hampden taking part in it. Captain Morris had little confidence in the militia, but expressed his intention to meet the enemy at their landing-place, wherever that might be, and also his resolution to destroy the Adams rather than allow it to fall into their hands.
"Belfast was taken the next morning by General Gosselin, at the head of six hundred troops. At the same time another detachment marched up the western side of the Penobscot unmolested, and reached Bald Hill Cove at five o'clock in the evening. The troops and eighty marines bivouacked there that night in a drenching rain. During that day about six hundred raw militia, who had never seen anything more like war than their own annual parade, had gathered at Hampden and been posted by General Blake in an admirable position on the brow of a hill. Lieutenant Lewis and the forty men who had fled from Castine had joined him. The artillery company of Blake's brigade was there also, with two brass three-pounders, and an iron eighteen-pound carronade from the Adams was placed in battery in the road near the meeting-house in charge of Mr. Bent of the artillery. Many of the militia were without weapons or ammunition, but Captain Morris supplied them as far as he could.
"While these arrangements were being made Captain Morris had mounted nine short eighteen-pounders from the Adams upon the high bank over Crosby's wharf, and placed them in charge of his first lieutenant, assisted by the other two. With the rest of his guns he took his position on the wharf, with about two hundred seamen and marines and twenty invalids, ready to defend his crippled ship to the last extremity.
"The next morning all that region was covered by a dense fog. The different British detachments joined together, and by five o'clock were moving on toward Hampden—moving cautiously in the mist, with a vanguard of riflemen, and on the flanks detachments of sailors and marines with a six-pound cannon, a six and a half inch howitzer, and a rocket apparatus. The British vessels at the same time moved slowly up the river within supporting distance.
"Blake had sent out two flank companies to watch and annoy the approaching foe, and between seven and eight o'clock they reported them as coming up the hill to attack the Americans. The fog was so thick that they could not be seen, but Blake pointed his eighteen-pounder in that direction, his fieldpieces also, and fired away with a good deal of effect, as he learned afterward; but the fog was too thick for him to see it at the time. His plan was to reserve his musket firing until the enemy should be near enough to be seriously hurt; but his men, being raw militia and without the protection of a breastwork in front, lost courage while standing there awaiting the approach of the enemy, and when it came suddenly into view, marching at double-quick and firing volleys in rapid succession, they were panic-stricken, broke ranks, and fled in every direction, leaving Blake and his officers alone. Lieutenant Wadsworth saw it all from the upper battery where he was, and sent word immediately to Morris, who was on the wharf.
"The flight of the militia had left Morris' rear and flank exposed, and he saw that it would be impossible to defend himself against such a force as was about to attack him. He therefore ordered Wadsworth to spike his guns and retreat with his men across the bridge over the Soadabscook, while it was yet open, for the stream was fordable only at low water, and the tide was rising.