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The National Music of America. 193
under Admiral Cockburn, Baltimore itself was threatened with speedy capture. At just this juncture, Francis Scott Key, a young lawyer, determined to seek the British admiral to procure, if possible, the release of a certain Doctor Beanes, a leading physician of Upper Marlborough, Md., who was his personal friend. Procuring proper credentials from President Madison, and proofs that Doctor Beanes was a non-combatant, Key set out on his dangerous mission. Cockburn had transferred Doctor Beanes to the custody of Vice-Admiral Cochrane, to whom Key now wended. He could not have come at a more inopportune moment, for Cockburn had planned a concerted attack by land and sea, upon Fort McHenry, the key to Baltimore, at about the time that the American envoy arrived. Vice-Admiral Cochrane agreed to release Beanes, and treated Key and his party with considerable courtesy, but refused to allow them to return just then, as |
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