History of Washington, D.C. problems, and plans for further construction to reach the Ohio River were abandoned. During the War of 1812, British forces conducted an expedition between August 19 and 29, 1814, that took and burned the capital city. On August 24, the British routed an American militia, which had gathered at Bladensburg, Maryland to protect the capital (see Battle of Bladensburg). The militia then abandoned Washington without a fight. President James Madison and the remainder of the U.S. government fled the capital shortly before the British arrived. The British then entered and burned the capital during the most notably destructive raid of
Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 The Anglo–Dutch Treaty of 1814 (also known as the Convention of London) was a treaty signed between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Sovereign Principality of the United Netherlands in London on 13 August 1814. It was signed by Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh for the British and Hendrik Fagel for the Dutch. The treaty returned the colonial possessions of the Dutch as they were at 1 January 1803 before the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars, in the Americas, Africa, and Asia with the exceptions of the Cape of Good Hope and the