When the British approached Bladensburg, and the improvised home-guard of Washington went out to engage them in battle, Mr. Madison permitted his military advisers to persuade him that, after seeing the stiffness of the American resistance, the British would withdraw. His wife caught the infection of confidence, and together they planned to celebrate the victory by a dinner to the officers on the evening after the battle. The table was spread by three in the afternoon, when Mrs. Madison, who had been listening with composure to the distant boom of cannon, was dismayed to see a lot of demoralized American soldiers running in from the north by twos and threes. Her sudden fears were confirmed when one of her colored servants galloped up to the door, shouting: “Clear out! Clear out! General Armstrong has ordered a retreat!” Then a few friends came over to insist on her seeking safety in flight. They helped her to fill a wagon with such valuables as were not too heavy; but she provoked their indignation by waiting till the oil portrait of General Washington attributed to Stuart, which hangs in the White House to-day, could be cut out of its frame and “placed in the hands of two gentlemen from New York for safe keeping.” We have already seen how the Capitol and other public buildings were burned. A particularly vicious scheme was worked out to assure the destruction of the President’s House, because of Mr. Madison’s personal share in the dispute which led to the war. Indeed, it was the hope of the invaders to find him and his wife at home and take them captive, so as to humiliate the American Government and people and thus impress a lesson for the future. By way of a reconnoiter, Admiral Cockburn went to the mansion and looked through it, taking with him as a hostage a young gentleman of the city, named Weightman. In the dining-room they found everything prepared for the dinner of triumph, and Cockburn ordered his companion to sit down with him and “drink Jemmy’s health.” Then he bade Weightman help himself to a mantel ornament as a souvenir of the day. “I must take something, too,” he added, and with great hilarity tucked under his arm an old hat of the President’s and a cushion from Mrs. Madison’s chair. When all was ready, a detachment of fifty sailors and marines were marched in silence up Pennsylvania Avenue, every man carrying a long pole with a ball of combustible material attached to the top of it. Arrived at the mansion, the balls were lighted, and the poles rested each against a window. At a command from their officer, the pole-bearers struck their windows simultaneously a hard blow, smashing the glass and hurling the fire-balls into the rooms with a single motion; and the little group of lookers-on beheld an outburst of flame from every part of the building at once.