proposition I positively object, without being able, however, to make him understand why all advantages in war may not be taken. “Wednesday morning, twelve o’clock.—Since sunrise I have been turning my spy-glass in every direction and watching with unwearied anxiety, hoping to discover the approach of my dear husband and his friends; but, alas! I can descry only groups of military wandering in all directions, as if there was a lack of arms, or of spirit, to fight for their own firesides! “Three o’clock.—Will you believe it, my sister? we have had a battle or skirmish near Bladensburg, and I am still here within sound of the cannon! Mr. Madison comes not; may God protect him! Two messengers covered with dust come to bid me fly; but I wait for him. * * * At this late hour a wagon has been procured; I have had it filled with the plate and most valuable portable articles belonging to the house; whether it will reach its destination, the Bank of Maryland, or fall into the hands of British soldiery, events must determine. Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken and the canvas taken out; it is done—and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York for safekeeping. And now, my dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it, by filling up the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write to you, or where I shall be to-morrow, I cannot tell!” On the removal of the seat of government to Washington, in 1800, a magnificent portrait of General Washington, painted by Stuart partly, and completed by Winstanley, to whom President John Adams’ son-in-law, Colonel Smith, stood for the unfinished limbs and body, hung in the state dining-room. Colonel Washington Parke Custis, of Arlington, a grandson of Mrs. Washington, called at the President’s to save this picture of his illustrious grandfather, in whose house he was reared. Then, as now, it was one of the very few ornaments which adorned the White House, and at the risk of capture Mrs. Madison determined to save it. The servants of the house broke with an axe the heavy gilt frame which protected the inner one of wood, upon which the canvas was stretched, and removed, uninjured, the painting, leaving the broken fragments screwed to the wall, which had held in place the valued relic. Mrs. Madison then left the house, and the portrait was taken by Mr. Baker beyond Georgetown and placed in a secure position.