264 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



The most interesting domestic event of this year (1814), 

 was the birth of a son. Jonathan Trumbnll Silliman was 

 born August 24, 1814, in the midst of the alarms of war, 

 on the very day on which the city of Washington was de- 

 stroyed by a British army. The Government was dis- 

 graced by permitting this capture; and the British dis- 

 graced themselves, not by burning the ships and the muni- 

 tions of naval warfare at the navy-yard, for that was 

 within the rules of war, but by destroying by fire the 

 National Capitol, the Presidential Palace, the National 

 Library, and Public Offices. It was indeed said in pallia- 

 tion, that General Dearborn's army had committed similar 

 atrocities at Little York, on Lake Ontario, now Toronto. 

 If so, they also disgraced themselves. The little stranger, 

 unconscious of these events, brought joy to the hearts of 

 his parents during the almost five years of his short life, 

 and deep sorrow when his beautiful form was laid in a pre- 

 mature grave, June 27, 1819. 



But of this severe bereavement I may say somewhat 

 more, when in these annals that day arrives, dark, indeed, 

 in parental grief, but bright in the full assurance that the 

 lovely boy, who, while with us, won all hearts, became in a 

 better world like an angel of light. The sanguinary and de- 

 cisive battle of New Orleans had been fought and won on 

 the 8th of January, 1815. Many other victories had been 

 obtained by land and by sea ; but still the war was very 

 distressing, and tidings were eagerly desired from our 

 Commissioners, who were in conference with the British 

 Commissioners at Ghent. As we were going to the chapel 

 service in the afternoon of an early Sabbath in February, 

 we met Mr. Wm. M'Crackan, who informed us that an ex- 

 press had just passed through town from Boston, bearing 

 the joyful news of peace. I suppose that the news had 

 not been made known, and it was announced by President 

 Dwight from the pulpit by reading the following very 

 appropriate hymn: 



