of small things is evident when, as we read, "a single packet sloop brought all the office furniture of the departments, beside seven large and five small boxes, containing all the archives of the government." The officials numbered fifty-four persons, including President Adams, the secretaries and all the clerks of the departments. The crudeness and

discomfort of Washington seem to have dissatisfied and even disgusted them all. Mrs. Adams spoke of it as "a wilderness city," and Secre tary Wolcott, in a letter to his wife, said: "There are but few houses, and most of them are small and miserable huts. The people are poor, and as far as I can judge, live like fishes, by eating each other." A member of Congress, in a letter at the time, says: "Pennsylvania avenue is a deep morass covered with elder bushes, which are cut through to the president's house." There seemed to be only two really comfortable habitations within the bounds of the city, and the roads in every direction were muddy and unimproved. Newspapers and

WASHINGTON IN 1810-THE OLD CAPITOL.

satirists everywhere cracked their jokes at the infant city. The capitol was called "the palace in the wilderness," and Pennsylvania avenue, "the great Serbonian Bog;" Georgetown was said to be "a city of houses without streets," and Washington "a city of streets without houses." And when there was some talk of removing the capital to another place a clever Scotch artist made a good deal of sport by the caricature of a congressman, with the capitol strapped on his back, ready to start as soon as it was decided where to go.

For years afterward Washington was but the skeleton of a town, and from its greatly extended but incomplete plans, it but incomplete plans, it was nicknamed "the city of magnificent distances." The appearance of the city, even so late as 1810, with the comparatively small capitol building, may be seen in the engraving (p. 219), though at that time there were no sidewalks, and the broad avenues were but thoroughfares cut through the woods or farms of the region then almost unoccupied. Of the contrast to the present appearance some idea may be formed from the second engraving, on page 221.

During the war of 1812, the British fleet, sailing up Chesapeake Bay, landed some 4,500 men, who began their march for Washington. At Bladensburg, five miles from the city, they were opposed by a large body of raw militia and a few hundred seamen, but overcoming these forces, they continued their march, and on the 24th of August, 1814, they reached the city, and soon entered the hall of the House of Representatives, where the soldiers formed around the Speaker's chair, in which Cockburn, seating himself, derisively called the assemblage to order, crying out, "Shall this harbor of Yankee democracy be burned? All in favor of it, say Aye!" As all at once cried out in the affirmative, he gave orders to fire the building, which soon was in flames. Leaving the fire burning furiously, the soldiers marched on to set fire to other public. edifices, but a severe rain setting in, extinguished the flames on the capitol, so that though the inside was burned the walls were left standing. Afterwards the building was restored, or rather rebuilt, and greatly enlarged, and in 1827 was reported to Congress as finished, covering then about one and a half acres, and being 352 feet long, and 145 feet high to the top of the dome, its construction having cost $2,433,814. In 1851, and several following years, a new dome and other improvements were added at a cost of $1,250,000, making the total expenditures on the building nearly $13,000,000. It now covers an area of over three and a half acres, and the grounds around it comprise forty-two acres. Its total length is 751 feet, and its greatest breadth 324 feet. Its basement is devoted to the committee-rooms of Congress, the law library, and the document and folding-rooms, the Congressional post office, and the Senate and House restaurants and offices. The principal story contains the Rotunda, the Statuary Hall, the Supreme Court room, the library of Congress and the halls of both Houses of Congress, with various rooms for the members and public officers.

The drenching rain, which extinguished the fire at the capitol, saved the White House and other public buildings from total destruction, and the enemy left the city late that night, fearing an attack under cover of the darkness; and taking to their fleet, which had come as far as Alexandria, sailed down the Potomac. The damage done by their invasion was estimated at $1,000,000. Seventy-five Americans were killed