Two friends came in to urge haste, reminding her that the English admiral, Cockburn, had taken an oath that he would sit in her drawing-room and that other officers had boasted they would take the president and his wife both prisoner and carry them to London to make a show of them. They were just ready to lift her into the carriage when Dolly stopped. “Not yet--the portrait of Washington--it shall never fall into the hands of the enemy. That must be taken away before I leave the house.” The famous painting by Gilbert Stuart was in a heavy frame, screwed to the wall in the state dining-room, but in that frantic hurry there were no tools at hand to remove it. “Get an axe and break the frame,” commanded Dolly Madison. She watched the canvas taken from the stretcher, saw it rolled up carefully, and sent to a place of safety. Later it was returned to her, and to-day hangs over the mantel in the red room of the White House. One more delay--the Declaration of Independence was kept in a glass case, separate from the other state papers. Notwithstanding all the protests of her friends, Dolly Madison ran back into the house, broke the glass, secured the Declaration with the autographs of the signers, got into her carriage and drove rapidly away to a house beyond Georgetown. None too soon did she leave. The sound of approaching troops was heard. The British were upon the city. They broke into the executive mansion, ransacked it, had dinner there in the state dining-room, stole what they could carry, and then set fire to the building. Instead of sleeping that night, Dolly Madison, with thousands of others, watched the fire destroying the capital, while the wind from an approaching storm fanned the flames. Before daybreak she set out for a little tavern, sixteen miles away, where her husband had arranged to meet her. The roads were filled with frightened people, while fleeing soldiers spread the wildest rumors of the enemy’s advance. Arrived at the inn finally in the height of the storm, the woman in charge refused to take her in, saying, “My man had to go to fight; your husband brought on this war and his wife shall have no shelter in my house!” The tavern was thronged with women and children, refugees from the city, who finally prevailed on the woman to let Mrs. Madison enter. The president arrived later, but before he had rested an hour a messenger came crying, “The British know you are here--fly!” Dolly Madison begged him to go to a little hut in the woods where he would be safe, and promised that she would leave in disguise and find a refuge farther away. In the gray of the morning she started, but soon came the good news that the English, hearing reinforcements were coming, had gone back to their ships. At once she turned and drove toward the city. The bridge over the Potomac was afire. “Will you row me across?” she asked an American officer. “No, we don’t let strange women into the city.”