Sir John Sherbrooke led a British force from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to establish New Ireland, which lasted until the end of the war, eight months later.

[5] The subsequent retirement of the British expeditionary force from its base in Castine to Nova Scotia ensured that eastern Maine would remain a part of the United States.

Lingering local feelings of vulnerability, however, would help fuel the post-war movement for statehood for what was then a part of Massachusetts, formally the District of Maine.

On August 26, 1814, a British squadron from the Royal Navy base at Halifax moved to capture the Down East coastal town of Machias.

Major General Gerard Gosselin commanded the army and Rear Admiral Edward Griffith Colpoys controlled the naval elements.

[8] En route, the squadron fell in with HMS Rifleman (18), and learned that the USS Adams (28), commanded by Captain Charles Morris, was undergoing repairs at Hampden, on the Penobscot River.

The local militia melted away at the sight and a 28-man contingent from the U.S. Army under Lieutenant Andrew Lewis of the 40th U.S. Infantry spiked their four 24-pounders, blew up their magazine and withdrew to the north trailing a pair of field pieces.

[9] As the first order of business, Sherbrooke and Griffith issued a proclamation assuring the populace if they remained quiet, pursued their usual affairs and surrendered all weaponry, they would be protected as British subjects.

[11] When Morris entered the river late in August he moved past Buckstown (now Bucksport, Maine) and anchored at the mouth of the Souadabscook Stream in Hampden on the west bank of the Penobscot some 30 miles inland.

Blake responded with some 550 militiamen and formed the center of a defensive line running along a ridge facing south, towards Castine.

[13] Late on September 2, Barrie landed his force at Bald Hill Cove three miles below Hampden and waited for morning.

Morris and his navy band made it to Bangor, crossed west through rugged country to the Kennebec River, and around September 9 arrived at their base in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

Barrie's troops proceeded to target six stores which sold alcohol, damaging or destroying $6,000 worth of property; many of Bangor's citizens fled to the surrounding countryside.

Before moving back down the river on the 4th, Barrie and John paroled 191 prisoners of war who were local residents, including Blake.

His troops infuriated local residents by killing a number of livestock and damaging or destroying personal property; two ships moored off Hampden were burnt.

The British then moved south to Frankfort, Maine and demanded a large sum of livestock and all arms and ammunition in the settlement.

However, he ultimately did not make good on this threat, and except for some ineffective American sniper attacks against the British as they passed through Prospect, Maine, the Battle of Hampden was at an end.

Sherbrooke declared "New Ireland" (Eastern Maine) a province of British North America (Canada) and left General Gosselin in Castine to govern it.

The final boundary between the inland, wooded portion of Maine and Canada would remain open to dispute until the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842.

Local memory of this humiliation contributed to subsequent anti-British feeling in Eastern Maine, which would find outlet again in the Aroostook War of 1838-1839.