Water was furnished the troops in buckets, and all the wine in the house given them. John Siousa, the French porter, after seeing the President and his attendants off, took the parrot belonging to Mrs. Madison to the residence of Col. Tayloe, and then returned and fastened the house securely and took the keys with him to Philadelphia. All the afternoon, parties of straggling soldiers, on their way to Georgetown, hung about the house and grounds, and vagrant negroes pilfered in spite of the efforts of the servants. Many articles were taken from the house to be secured and returned as some were, but much was never restored. The porter secreted the gold and silver mounted carbines and pistols of the Algerian minister, which are now in the Patent Office, but the revolvers belonging to the Secretary of the Treasury, which the President laid on a table, were stolen. Gloating with revenge, at the escape of the President and his wife, “whom they wanted to show in England,” the enemy broke open the doors of the White House, and ransacked it from cellar to garret, finding nothing of value, or as objects of curiosity, save a small parcel of the pencil notes received from her husband by Mrs. Madison, while he was with the troops, which she had rolled up together and put in a table drawer. To all the rest of the contents: furniture, wines, provisions, groceries, and family stores, which cost Mr. Madison twelve thousand dollars, together with an excellent library, the torch was applied. Fire was procured at a small beer house opposite the Treasury to light the buildings with, and while the commanders were eating their evening meal at the house of Mrs. Suter, on the corner, the common soldiers, together with the negroes and thieves of all grades, were pillaging the rapidly burning buildings.