This appeal was answered with a prompt and stirring enthusiasm. Volunteer associations pressed forward without regard to party or situation in life. The ground of self-defence was a common ground, and rich and poor worked together on the same works, intermingling their labours with patriotic emulation. The Bowling Green and Brooklyn Heights were like military camps; indeed, the whole city was one great company enrolled to save New York, or perish with it. On the twenty-sixth day of August the _Evening Post_ announced the taking of Washington and the flight of the President, and the wildest excitement prevailed; and on the following morning, the press unanimously called: TO ARMS! CITIZENS, TO ARMS! YOUR CAPITAL IS TAKEN! PREPARE TO DEFEND OUR CITY TO THE LAST EXTREMITY! THIS IS NO TIME TO TALK! WE MUST ACT AND ACT WITH VIGOUR, OR WE ARE LOST! In the meantime the government had revised its instructions to the envoys for peace. The rights stipulated for in 1813 and 1814 they were told to abandon; and “_if necessary waive every point for which the war was commenced_.” Nothing could more urgently describe the urgent necessity of the country, which, indeed, was financially and commercially on the brink of ruin. Her harbours were blockaded; communications coastwise between all ports cut off; ships rotting in every creek and cove where they could find security, and the immense annual products of the country mouldering in warehouses. The sources of profitable labour were dried up, and the currency considered as irredeemable paper. Nor were these things the worst features of the situation. A still more dangerous symptom of the national emergency was the hostility of certain portions of the Union. Secession in some States was a proposition not unlikely to become a fact; while the credit of the government was exhausted, and the war apparently as far from a close as ever it had been. The winter also was very severe, the Hudson frozen across to Jersey City, and the Sound frozen across from the mainland to Sands Point. There was much poverty and suffering, and a great gloom and depression owing to the apparent failure of the Peace Commissioners at Ghent to effect any reasonable agreement. Yet among the military social entertainments were frequent, and the people prominent in New York social life still kept up the pretence of fashion, and gave dinners, balls, and theatre parties, which had a kind of half-hearted semblance of gaiety.