of the amphibious assault force, Sir John Hanchett, illegitimate son of King George III. Aftermath The Americans had scored a defensive victory in the face of a much larger force. Norfolk and the Gosport Navy Yard were spared from attack. Having failed in their attempt to attack Norfolk, Warren and Cockburn moved north for actions in the Chesapeake Bay, including an attempt to attack St. Michaels, Maryland, in August. Two days after the engagement at Craney Island, British forces crossed the Hampton Roads via Craney Island and raided the town of Hampton, Virginia. The raid was mostly carried out by the Independent Companies of Foreigners, a British military regiment consisting solely of former French prisoners of war who had enlisted into the unit in exchange for being released from captivity in prison hulks; as a result of the raid, Hampton was burned to the ground. A British officer described the actions of the Independent Companies of Foreigners in his diary: "Every horror was perpetrated with impunity – rape, murder, pillage – and not a single man was punished." After the raid, several Americans sent letters to the British criticizing the actions of the Independent Companies of Foreigners during the raid. In response, Quartermaster-General Thomas Sydney Beckwith replied that though outrages had been committed during the raid, they were in response to an incident during the battle where three boats containing troops from the Independent Companies of Foreigners were stranded by American cannon-fire; U.S. forces waded towards the boats to capture them, and Lieutenant-Colonel Charles James Napier later recalled that "One boat with thirty of the foreigners [was] stranded with a shot through her, and the Americans, wading to it, deliberately massacred the poor men!" In response to claims that American forces had committed a massacre during the battle, Taylor, "while not denying the firing upon the boats out of general necessity during the action, conveniently noted that the stranded Frenchmen were not deliberately targeted, and found that only one was shot... while attempting to escape." 22 soldiers from the Independent Companies of Foreigners were captured by the Americans, "lending some credence to the Americans’ claims." Irregardless, "rumours of cold-blooded American brutality enraged the British forces, [with] Napier noting that his own men and the Foreigners took the news particularly badly." The repulse at Craney Island did not deter the British from further operations in Hampton Roads the next year. That