"I do not think it would be an innocent
amusement for you, as no one has a right to entertain himself at the
expense of others." In such dallying and badinage the months went
on, affairs every day becoming more serious. Appended to a letter of
September 9, 1814, is a list of twenty well-known mercantile houses that
had failed within the preceding three weeks. Irving himself, shortly
after this, enlisted in the war, and his letters thereafter breathe
patriotic indignation at the insulting proposals of the British and
their rumored attack on New York, and all his similes, even those having
love for their subject, are martial and bellicose. Item: "The gallant
Sam has fairly changed front, and, instead of laying siege to Douglas
castle, has charged sword in hand, and carried little Cooper's'
entrenchments."

As a Federalist and an admirer of England, Irving had deplored the war,
but his sympathies were not doubtful after it began, and the burning
of the national Capitol by General Ross aroused him to an active
participation in the struggle. He was descending the Hudson in a
steamboat when the tidings first reached him. It was night, and the
passengers had gone into the cabin, when a man came on board with the
news, and in the darkness related the particulars: the burning of the
President's house and government offices, and the destruction of the
Capitol, with the library and public archives. In the momentary silence
that followed, somebody raised his voice, and in a tone of complacent
derision "wondered what Jimmy Madison would say now." "Sir," cried Mr.
Irving, in a burst of indignation that overcame his habitual shyness,
"do you seize upon such a disaster only for a sneer? Let me tell you,
sir, it is not now a question about Jimmy Madison or Jimmy Armstrong.
The pride and honor of the nation are wounded; the country is insulted
and disgraced by this barbarous success, and every loyal citizen would
feel the ignominy and be earnest to avenge it." There was an outburst
of applause, and the sneerer was silenced. "I could not see the fellow,"
said Mr. Irving, in relating the anecdote, "but I let fly at him in the
dark."

The next day he offered his services to Governor Tompkins, and was
made the governor's aid and military secretary, with the right to be
addressed as Colonel Washington Irving. He served only four months in
this capacity, when Governor Tompkins was called to the session of the
legislature at Albany. Irving in