2d. Shall the captured Spanish posts be restored, and general Jackson put on his trial before a court martial, for a breach of orders, and unofficer like conduct?

3d. Shall the posts be restored, and the acts of general Jackson disavowed, at the same time justifying the motive?"

The council decided that the posts should be restored, requiring of the Spanish government, that they should be garrisoned by a force sufficient to enable them to fulfil the stipulations of the treaty of 1795, and that general Jackson should not be tried by a court martial. In pursuance of this advice, Pensacola and the Barancas were immediately restored, and St. Marks ordered to be given up whenever a Spanish force, apparently competent to its defense should appear to take possession.

Destruction of Chehawtown. During the period of these operations in the Floridas, Governor Rabun, in consequence of depredations recently committed on the Georgia frontier, by a party of Indians from the towns of Philemmes and Hoppones on the Flint river, issued an order, on the 14th of April, to Captain Obed Wright, of the Georgia militia, then stationed on that frontier by order of the governor, to destroy those towns. An order of this description implies, that all the fighting Indians that can be found, should be slain, property of every description carried off or destroyed, the houses burned, and the non-combatants driven into exile. Unfortunately, Captain Wright, on his march was informed that the chiefs of the offending towns were at the Chehaw village, one of the principal towns of the M'Intosh Indians, on the same river, fifteen miles above fort Early, whose warriors were then with General Jackson in the Florida expedition. In consequence of this information, Captain Wright directed his march to this village, and executedhis orders with exemplary severity, on its unarmed and unoffending inhabitants.

The surviving chiefs made a humble and pathetic representation of their distressed situation, to the United States agent, who immediately ordered the captured property to be restored, and assured them, in behalf of the government, that their losses should be remunerated, and the officer under whose orders it had been done, punished.

Correspondence between Jackson and Rabun. Intelligence of this event reached General Jackson on the 7th of May, on his march from St. Marks to Pensacola. He immediately wrote to Governor Rabun, stating "that it was strange and unaccountable that a governor of a state should

assume the right of making war upon an Indian tribe, at perfect peace, and under the protection of the United States. You, sir," the general adds, "as a governor of a state within my military division, have no right to give a military order while I am in the field. Captain Wright must be prosecuted and punished for this outrageous murder, and I have ordered him arrested and confined in irons, until the pleasure of the president of the United States shall be known upon the subject."

The governor, in reply, remarks, "Had you, sir, been in possession of the facts which produced the order, it is to be presumed you would not have indulged in a strain so indecorous and unbecoming. Wretched and contemptible, indeed, must be our situation, if it be a fact, as you state, that a governor of a state has no right to give a military order while you are in the field: when the liberties of the people of Georgia shall have been prostrated at the feet of a military despotism, then, and not till then, will your imperious doctrine be submitted to. You may rest assured, that if the savages continue their depredations on our unprotected frontier, I shall think and act for myself in this respect. You demand that Captain Wright be delivered to Major Davis in irons. If you,sir,are unacquainted with the fact, I beg leave to inform you that Captain Wright was not under your command. He having violated his orders in destroying the Chehaw village instead of the Hippones and Philemmes towns, I had, previous to receiving your demand, ordered him to be arrested; but before he was apprehended agreeable to my orders, he was taken by your agent, and afterwards liberated by the civil authority. I have since had him arrested and confined, and shall communicate the whole transaction to the president of the United States for his decision, together with a copy of your letter."

General Jackson replied, advising the governor to study the laws of his country, before he entered the lists of controversy with him on the subject of their relative powers and duties. The governor reciprocated this advice, by recommending to the general to examine the orders of his superiors with more attention than was usual for him, before he undertook to prosecute another campaign. This terminated their correspondence upon the subject. Captain Wright was seized and put in close confinement by Major Davis, under an order from General Jackson; and liberated by the civil authorities of Georgia, by a habeas corpus, on the ground, that that general had no right to imprison one

of their citizens who was not in the military service under his command. Governor Rabun, on the 29th of May, as captain general of the Georgia militia, under whose orders Captain Wright acted, caused him to be arrested and held in confinement, subject to such order as the president of the United States should give upon the subject. The president directed his trial before the circuit court for murder, and a warrant issued to the marshal to take him into custody. Captain Wright, in the mean time, broke his parol, fled, and avoided a trial.

Views of the Seminole war. The incidents of this Seminole Indian hunt, which has been dignified with the name of war, in a military point of view, are of very little consequence, and unworthy of a minute detail in a general history of the times. It eventuated in the slaughter of about sixty hostile Indians and negroes, with the loss of twenty of the M'Intosh party. No white man was slain in the expedition. Seven hundred huts were destroyed, and their miserable and deluded inhabitants driven into exile. Two Indian chiefs, not taken in arms, but decoyed by stratagem on board an American vessel, were hung without ceremony or trial. Two English renegadoes suffered death by a military execution: the Floridas cleared of hostile savages, the Spanish authorities transported to Cuba, and the territory seized, and put under the military occupation of the United States. The peculiar characteristics of this war rendered it a subject of deep interest. On the one hand, the United States received great and essential benefits. The very extensive and exposed southern frontier was rendered secure from Indian depredations. The exemplary severity exercised upon the savages and their unprincipled advisers, were well calculated to strike terror upon tribes remote from the scene of action, and to deter savage whites from associating with Indians for the purpose of plunder and devastation.

But these advantages were purchased by a sacrifice of principle, which Americans hold too dear to be bartered for any such objects. They have a constitution, framed with great circumspection, to guard their rights from the encroachments of power. Every violation weakens its authority, and affords a precedent which may be perverted to the worst purposes. The danger increases in proportion to the high standing and popularity of the person by whom it is transgressed; and is much greater when done by a military than a civil officer. Pretenses of necessity, and an ostentatious zeal for the public good, are never wanting to jus

tify the arbitrary exercise of power. That part of the constitution which delegates the power of the sword to the general government, is guarded with peculiar caution, and manifested in the sages who formed, and the people who adopted it, a great jealousy of military power. The militia are to be trained and officered by state authorities, and to be called into the service of the United States only in three specified cases. Congress alone can make war, and raise and support armies, and even that body can make no appropriation of money for that purpose for a longer term than two years; so that the necessity and expediency of war, and of raising and supporting armies, may pass in review before the immediate representatives of the people on every change of that body.

When the Tennessee volunteers were called into service, there was no law to authorize raising such a corps. The persons assigned to their command, having no legitimate commissions from the general government constituting them officers of such troops, could have no lawful authority to command them, or hold courts martial for the trial of capital offenses. The trial, condemnation, and execution of the two Englishmen found in the Floridas, for the charges alledged against them, was without authority either from the constitution and laws of the United States, or the principles of national law. The execution of the two Indian chiefs was unauthorized by any principles ever adopted by the United States towards that people. The military occupation of the Floridas was an unequivocal act of war upon Spain, without the shadow of authority either from congress or the executive, contrary to his express orders, and a measure which involved the United States in serious difficulties with that nation. On receiving intelligence of this event, the Spanish government demanded, that the act should be explicitly disavowed; that every thing should be restored to the state it was in before General Jackson entered the Floridas; that satisfaction should be made for all losses sustained, and the commanding general punished; and declared a suspension of all diplomatic intercourse until these demands were complied with.

Mr. Adams' defense. Mr. Adams, the American secretary of state, in a letter to Mr. Erving, the substance of which was to be communicated to the Spanish ministry, entered into an elaborate justification of the proceedings of his government. By the treaty of 1795, Spain had expressly stipulated to restrain, by force if necessary, the Indians within the limits of

her territories from committing acts of hostility against the citizens of the United States. Mr. Adams produced a series of undisputed facts, which clearly proved that the Spanish authorities in Florida, so far from regarding this stipulation, had instigated and encouraged the Indians and negroes within their limits to the most barbarous acts of murder and rapine; had furnished them with the means of annoyance, and protected foreign miscreants in aiding the savages in their work of destruction. This, Mr. Adams claimed, was a full justification to the Spanish government, for every measure which the American had adopted in relation to the Floridas, and would warrant any further reprisals which the safety of the citizens of the United States might require and concluded with demanding satisfaction for the heavy expenses incurred in prosecuting the Seminole war, and the exemplary punishment of the Spanish officers under whose authority these events had taken place.

Arbuthnot and Ambrister being foreign emissaries, and principal instigators of the massacres done by the savages, their being put to death by an American officer, Mr. Adams contended, furnished no ground of complaint on thepart of Spain, though done within her jurisdiction.

They being British subjects, their case was taken up and discussed in the British parliament; and the view there taken of it was, that as they had voluntarily left their own country, and joined the enemies of another, if taken, they were liable to be treated in the same manner as those with whom they were associated; and their military execution furnished no cause of complaint by the British, against the American government.

Proceedings of congress relating to the Seminole war. Soon after the commencement of the session of congress in December, 1818, the president communicated to both houses all the papers relating to the Seminole war. In the senate, they were referred to a committee of five, Burrell, Lacock, Eppes, King of New York, and Eaton. The three first concurred in a report censuring in severe and unqualified terms the conduct of General Jackson throughout. The two latter justified him. The report was made to the senate near the close of the session, and no vote taken upon the subject. In the house of representatives, the papers were referred to the committee on military affairs, consisting of seven members, four of whom concurred in a report of a similar character with that made to the senate. The other three presented a statement approving the general's con