Armstrong, the Secretary of War, following the example of President, Cabinet, Generals and army, galloped away from the disastrous field of Bladensburg, and took refuge in a farm-house. The fugitive President and the fugitive Secretary at length met, and returned together to Washington. The entrance of the latter to the capital was the signal for the indignant outburst of the entire population. The militia officers of the District refused to obey his orders in the future, and a committee of the citizens waited on the President, demanding his dismissal from the post of Secretary of War. It was suddenly discovered that he was wholly to blame for the conduct of the troops at Bladensburg. Borne away by the popular current, which he was thankful was not directed against himself, Madison requested Armstrong to retire for awhile to Baltimore. [Sidenote: Sept. 3.] The latter obeyed, but immediately sent in his resignation, in which he paid the President the compliment of having, as he declared, shamefully yielded to the "humors of a village mob." Monroe, Secretary of State, was appointed to discharge his duties, and a proclamation was issued calling an early meeting of Congress. The British government never committed a greater blunder than when it sanctioned the sack and burning of Washington. Estimating its importance by that which the capitals of Europe held in their respective kingdoms, her misguided statesmen supposed its overthrow would paralyze the nation and humble the government into submission. But there was scarcely a seaport on our coast, whose destruction would not have been a greater public calamity. Besides, the greater its value in the eyes of the people, the more egregious the mistake. Judging us by the effeminate races of India, or the ignorant population of central Europe, who are accustomed to be governed by blows, they imagined the heavier the scourging, the more prostrated by fear, and more eager for peace we should become. But resistance and boldness rise with us in exact proportion to the indignities offered and injuries inflicted. With a country, whose vital part is no where fixed, but consisting in the unity of the people, can shift with changing fortunes from the sea-coast even to the Rocky Mountains, its heart can never be reached by the combined forces of the world. This republic can never die but by its own hand. In a foreign war, our strength can be weakened only by sowing dissensions. Outrages which inflame the national heart, or local sufferings that awaken national sympathy serve only to heal all these, and hence render us impregnable. Thus, when Mr. Alison, in closing up his account of this war and speaking of the probabilities of another, advises the sudden precipitation of vast armies on our shore as the only way to insure success, he exhibits a lamentable ignorance of our character. An outrage or calamity at the outset, sufficiently great to break down