Part 12

A feeling of keen resentment toward General Jackson and some officers involved in this affair was nursed long after by these legislators. After peace was assured and hostilities at an end, the Legislature voted a resolution of thanks for valiant services in defense of Louisiana to the officers and soldiers from the States of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Mississippi, with the request to the Governor that he should convey the sense of this resolution in appropriate terms in a letter each to the officers in command of these troops, respectively. The resolution was as follows:

Resolved, That the thanks of the General Assembly be presented, in the name of the State, to our brave brother soldiers from Tennessee, Kentucky, and the Mississippi Territory, and their gallant leaders, Generals Coffee, Carroll, Thomas, Adair, and Colonel Hinds, for the brilliant share they have had in the defense of this country and the happy harmony they have maintained with the inhabitants and militia of the State.

MAGLOIRE GUICHARD, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

FULWAR SKIPWORTH, President of Senate.

Approved, February 2d, 1815.

WM. C. CLAIBORNE, Governor of State.

The great chieftain could well afford to pass the slight in silence, hailed as he was by the acclamations of the multitude--the deliverer of the country, and the hero of the nation!

A similar resolution of thanks was voted to the officers and troops of Louisiana, who had so patriotically sprung to arms on the invasion of the enemy, and who had so gallantly fought in the several battles of the campaign. In this resolution separate mention was made of each of the officers of the State troops and their several commands, reciting the meritorious services they had rendered, in terms of special praise, making exceptions of certain officers who had incurred the displeasure of some of the honorable legislators.

Under the first resolution, letters were addressed each to Generals Coffee and Carroll, of Tennessee, to Major Hinds, of Mississippi, and to Generals Thomas and Adair, of Kentucky. As these letters are of similar tenor, we quote only the correspondence with General Adair:

NEW ORLEANS, February 25th, 1815.

Sir: To a soldier who has done his duty in all the conflicts in which his country has been involved, from the War of Independence to the present moment, it must be matter of great exultation to notice the valor and firmness of the children of his old friends; to be convinced that they are the true descendants of the old stock. That the young men of your brigade should have looked up to you in the hour of battle, as their guide and their shield, is only a continuation of that confidence which their fathers had in a chief whose arm had so often, and so successfully, been raised against the foe. The enclosed Resolution of the General Assembly of Louisiana will show you the high sense which is entertained in this State of your services and of those of your brothers in arms. Be towards them the vehicle of our sentiments, and receive for yourself the assurances of my respect and best wishes.

WM. C.C. CLAIBORNE, Governor of Louisiana.

To General John Adair.

The response of General Adair:

GOV. WM. C.C. CLAIBORNE.

Sir: I have the honor of acknowledging the receipt of Your Excellency's note, inclosing a Resolution of the Legislature of Louisiana, generously awarding the thanks of the State to the militia from her sister States, who aided in the late successful struggle to expel a powerful invading enemy from her shores.

To a proud American, citizen or soldier, the consciousness of having faithfully discharged his duty to his country must ever be his highest and most lasting consolation. But when to this is added the approbation, the gratitude of the wisest, the most respectable part of the community, with whom and under whose eye it has been his fortune to act, it will ever be esteemed, not only the highest reward for his services, but the most powerful incentive to his future good conduct.

Accept, sir, for the Legislature, my warmest acknowledgments for the honorable mention they have made of the corps to which I belong, and for yourself the esteem and respect so justly due from me, for your polite and highly interesting note of communication; and my best wishes for your health and happiness.

JOHN ADAIR.

GENERAL JACKSON--CLASH WITH THE COURT.

A member of the Legislature, Mr. Loillier, severely censured the commander-in-chief for continuing New Orleans and vicinity under martial law after the defeat and embarkation of the British army, and for his arbitrary course in sending a body of creole troops to a remote camp near Baton Rouge, in response to their petition for a discharge. Jackson ordered his arrest. Loillier applied to Judge Hall, of the United States District Court, for a writ of habeas corpus, which was promptly granted by the court. General Jackson summarily ordered the arrest of Judge Hall also; and that he and the assemblyman both be deported beyond the military lines, as persons liable to incite insubordination and mutiny within the martial jurisdiction. Intelligence of the treaty of peace at Ghent soon followed, and martial law once again yielded to civil authority.

Judge Hall, resenting what he deemed a great indignity upon the court, issued an order, summoning Jackson to appear before him to answer a grave charge of contempt. Jackson's attorney attempted to plead in his defense, but the judge silenced him, and set the hearing a week after. On the thirty-first of March, Jackson appeared in court in person, but refused to be interrogated. As his defense had been denied, he announced that he was there only to receive the sentence of the court. Judge Hall then imposed a fine of one thousand dollars, which sum the veteran offender drew from his pocket and handed in to the court.

These proceedings were attended with profound excitement throughout the city and community. The hero of the day had a determined following present in crowds at and near the court-room; and among these were the Baratarian contingent, with their leaders, and others as desperate as these. But the great commander had set the example of implicit obedience to the law, and no disrespect to the court was shown. But as the General sought to retire from the scene, the enthusiasm of the crowds overleaped all bounds of propriety. With shouts and roars of applause the devoted people lifted him in their arms and upon their shoulders, and bore him in triumph through the streets of the city to his headquarters, despite the chagrin and helpless protestations of the victim of their admiration. Tall and gaunt, and angular in person, with his long, spare limbs dangling helplessly about him, and rocked and swayed by the movement of the masses under him, the great warrior was never in all his life before in a position more awkward and undignified. The master of men and emergencies was unthroned for one time in life.

The money to pay the fine was proffered over and over again to reimburse him by ardent friends, but Jackson would listen to no terms of payment of the fine, except out of his own purse. He alone had committed the offense--if there was an offense--and he alone would assume to pay the penalty. It was not until 1844, one year before his death, that Congress passed an act to refund the principal and interest, which amounted then to twenty-seven hundred dollars. In advocacy of this bill Stephen A. Douglas, then Senator from Illinois, made his maiden speech upon the floor of the Senate of the United States.

ENGLAND'S PURPOSE TO CONQUER AND HOLD POSSESSION OF THE TERRITORY CEDED BY NAPOLEON, AND TO ESTABLISH HER DOMINION IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY.

There are evidences that the English Government had revived an old dream of conquest and expansion, by which she might once again establish dominion west of the Alleghany Mountains, by the capture of New Orleans, the key to the lower Mississippi Valley. It is a well-known fact in history that that government refused to recognize the legitimacy of the sale and transfer of the Territory of Louisiana by Napoleon to the United States. She had looked upon the transaction with a covetous and jealous eye, for she had nursed the hope some day of adding to her own vast possessions, by conquest or purchase, not only the domain of Louisiana, but that of Florida also. Had it not been that she was engrossed with her military and naval forces in the turbulent wars in Europe, during the ascendant period of Napoleon, the British Government would most probably have employed her armies and navies mainly in the accomplishment of these aims of territorial aggrandizement. Her invasion of the Northwest territory from Canada, at the opening of the War of 1812-15, which so disastrously ended with the destruction of the British fleet by Commodore Perry on Lake Erie, and the annihilation of the British army by General Harrison at the battle of the Thames, was but an entering wedge to her deep designs. After the fall of Napoleon and the pacification of Europe relieved her armies and navies of further service on that side of the ocean, she, in her pride and insolence, believed that she would be invincible in America. Her cherished dream might now at last be realized by the conquest and permanent possession of Louisiana. We have mentioned the significant fact that overtures for peaceful negotiations had been mutually arranged as early as January, 1814, and commissioners soon after appointed to meet at Ghent. When the capitulation at Paris and the exile of Napoleon to Elba occurred within a few brief months, repeated excuses for the delay of negotiations by the British envoys were made. The United States wanted peace on equitable terms, for she had nothing to gain by continuing the war. England dallied and delayed; meanwhile marshaling her military and naval forces for a final crushing blow on her American foe. When articles of peace were signed on the twenty-fourth of December, the British Government knew that information of the event would not reach the belligerents in the Gulf of Mexico until some time in February. But His Majesty, the King of England, and his councilors, confidently believed, as did the officers in command of the English army and navy in this expedition, that the victorious invaders would eat their Christmas dinner in the subjugated city of New Orleans, and there to stay.

Gleig, an educated officer with the army of invasion, who became the chief English historian of the campaign, in his "Narrative," has to say:

The primary cause of our defeat may be traced to a source more distant than I have mentioned; I mean to the disclosure of our designs to the enemy. How this occurred, I shall not take upon me to declare; though several rumors bearing at least the guise of probability have been circulated. The attack on New Orleans was professedly a secret expedition, so secret indeed that it was not communicated to the inferior officers and soldiers in the armament until immediately previous to our quitting Jamaica. To the Americans, however, it appears to have been long known before. And hence it was that, instead of taking them unawares, we found them fully prepared for our reception. That our failure is to be lamented no one will deny, since the conquest of New Orleans would have been, beyond all comparison, the most valuable acquisition that could be made to the British dominion throughout the whole Western hemisphere. In possession of that post, we should have kept the entire Southern trade of the United States in check, and furnished means of commerce to our own merchants, of incalculable value.