But national affairs were not to remain quiet. Trouble had long been brewing with England. The commerce of the United States had been almost entirely destroyed by acts of the British. The Atlantic coast from north to south was blockaded by them and many American seamen were impressed. Washington and Adams had managed to avert this war, but now matters were come to a crisis: the whole nation was inflamed, and on June 18, 1812, Congress formally declared war. As most of the fighting was done at sea, life at the capital went on undisturbed until August 19th, when it began to be rumored that the British were coming to attack Washington. The rumor became a certainty when a horseman dashed through the villages forty miles below Washington, shouting: "To arms! Cockburn is coming!" The English had landed five thousand men and were marching toward the capital. Washington was in a state of panic. Citizens banded together for defence and marched to meet the enemy. On August 22, President Madison bade farewell to his wife and left for the front. Up to this time Mrs. Madison had been without fear, but now, learning that the American ships had been destroyed and knowing that her husband was in danger, she became very uneasy. The work of saving records was at once begun. Important papers were piled into wheelbarrows and carts and carried away. At three o'clock, August 24, Mrs. Madison sat anxiously waiting for some word from her husband. She refused to leave the White House until a large portrait of General Washington was saved, and time being too short to admit of its being unscrewed from the wall, she gave the order to have the frame broken with an axe and the canvas taken out. It was sent in a carriage to a woman living beyond Georgetown, who afterward returned it to Mrs. Madison. It now hangs in the White House again. A hurried note from the President bade her be in readiness to leave in a carriage at a moment's notice, for it was feared the British would destroy the city. Soon her worst fears were realized, for sounds of approaching troops were heard. Two gentlemen rushed into the room, exclaiming: "Fly, madam! At once! The British are upon us!" Mrs. Madison suddenly remembered that the Declaration of Independence, which was kept in a case separate from other documents, had been overlooked when the other papers were sent away. She turned, and notwithstanding the protests of her friends, ran into the house, broke the glass in the case, secured the Declaration, and then jumped into the carriage, which took her to the home of a friend in Georgetown. Washington could be rebuilt and many valuable articles which were destroyed could be replaced, but the Declaration of Independence once gone would have been lost forever.