Lake Champlain and the upper Hudson River. However, the Earl of Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, dispatched a brigade of 2,500 soldiers, mainly veterans from the Duke of Wellington's army, and commanded by Major General Robert Ross, to the Imperial fortress of Bermuda, from where a blockade of the U.S. coast and even the occupation of some coastal islands had been overseen throughout the war. Ross' brigade arrived there aboard , three frigates, three sloops and ten other vessels. The intention was for this force to carry out raids on the Atlantic Seaboard to "effect a diversion on the coasts of the United States of America in favor of the army employed in the defence of Upper and Lower Canada". United States plans and preparations Meanwhile, Albert Gallatin, President James Madison's nominated commissioner for negotiations with the British government, sent news from Europe of Napoleon's abdication and the apparent hardening of British attitudes towards the United States. On 1 July 1814, Madison summoned his cabinet to discuss the increased threat to the United States' Atlantic coast, including Washington, although the Secretary of War, John Armstrong, insisted that the British would not attack Washington, since it was strategically unimportant. He felt the most likely target would be the city of Baltimore, which offered more commercial targets and plunder than Washington. Armstrong was half right; the British would launch attacks against both Baltimore and Washington. Nevertheless, on 2 July, Madison designated the area around Washington and Baltimore as the United States Army's Tenth Military District and, without consulting Armstrong, appointed Brigadier General William H. Winder as its commander. Winder was the nephew of Levin Winder, Federalist Governor of Maryland. He had practiced law in Baltimore before being commissioned as a colonel in 1812 and had only recently been exchanged after having been captured at the Battle of Stoney Creek in July 1813. On 5 July, he and Armstrong conferred. Winder suggested calling up some militia in advance of any attack, but Armstrong insisted that militia could best be used on the spur of the moment. Winder spent a month visiting the forts and settlements in his new command. Armstrong did not provide him with any staff, and despite his fears that the British could launch an attack against almost any point with very little warning, Winder did not order any field fortifications to be constructed, nor make any