from the thunders of the American batteries. A third unavailing attempt was made to rally their troops by their officers, but the same destruction met them. The gallantry of the British officers, on this desperate day, was deserving of a worthier cause, and better fate. General Gibbs fell mortally, and General Kean desperately wounded, and were borne from the field of action. The discomfiture of the enemy was now complete; a few only of the platoons reached the ditch, there to meet more certain death. The remainder fled from the field with the greatest precipitancy, and no further efforts were made to rally them. The intervening plain between the American and British fortifications was covered with the dead; taking into view the length of time and the numbers engaged, the annals of bloody strife, it is believed, furnish no parallel to the dreadful carnage of this battle. Two thousand, at the lowest estimate, fell, besides a considerable number wounded. The loss of the Americans did not exceed seven killed and six wounded. General Lambert was the only superior officer left on the field; being unable to check the flight of the British columns, he retreated to his encampment.

"The entire destruction of the enemy's army would have been now inevitable, had it not been for an unfortunate occurrence, which at this moment took place on the other side of the river. General Pakenham had thrown over in his boats, upon that side of the stream, a considerable force, under the command of Colonel Thornton, simultaneously with his advance upon the main body of the American works. They succeeded in landing at the point of their destination, and advanced to assault the intrenchment defended by General Morgan. Their reception was not such as might have been expected, from the known courage and firmness of the troops under his command; at a moment, when the same fate that met their fellows on the opposite side of the river was looked for, with a confidence approaching to a certainty, the American right, believing itself to be outflanked, or for some other reason never satisfactorily explained, relin

quished its position, while the left, with the batteries of Commodore Patterson, maintained their ground for some time with much gallantry and spirit, till at length, finding themselves deserted by their friends on the right, and greatly outnumbered by the enemy, they were compelled to spike their guns and retreat.

This unfortunate result totally changed the aspect of affairs. The enemy were now in occupation of a position from which they might annoy the Americans with little hazard to themselves, and by means of which they might have been enabled to defeat, in a very considerable degree, the effects of the success of our arms on the other side of the river. It therefore became an object of the first consequence with General Jackson, to dislodge him as soon as possible. For this object, all the means in his power, which he could use with any safety, were put into immediate requisition."

But, under cover of the night, the enemy, totally disheartened, retreated silently to his ships, and sailed sorrowfully from the place of his punishment, the muchcoveted Mississippi. The British loss, in officers and men, was about 5,000, including their general-in-chief; the American loss less than 300.

Well might William Cobbett read a lesson to the British oligarchy from the battle of New Orleans! Well might he exult over the punishment which had fallen upon them, from this "son of poor Irish emigrant parents.'

While at New Orleans, Jackson received news of the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent, and the new-made peace consequent thereon.

* Cobbett's Life of Andrew Jackson. This biting pamphlet was intended to be a vehicle of Cobbett's radicalism, on the questions of the day in Great Britain. It is conceived in a very angry spirit, but executed with great ability. See the Dedication to “The People of Ireland.”

CHAPTER XVI.

66

JACKSON, PRESIDENT UNITED STATES BANK― THE IRISH VOTE EDWARD KAVANAGH, MINISTER TO PORTUGAL-SENATOR PORTER — JACKSON'S PARTIALITY TO IRISH EMIGRANTS HIS INFLUENCE ON HIS PARTY-HIS CHARACTER.

By the victory of New Orleans, Jackson had saved the valley of the Mississippi; by the Seminole war of 1817 and 1818, he added the Floridas to "the area of liberty." His native state, as a proof of its confidence, sent him to the Senate, and, in 1824, a great portion of the Democratic party voted for him as President. Two hundred and seventy-one electoral votes were divided between four candidates, thus: - Jackson had ninety-nine; John Quincy Adams eighty-four; W. H. Crawford forty-one, and Henry Clay thirty-seven. The decision, therefore, went to the House of Representatives, who, through some motive, passed over the popular candidate, and elected Mr. Adams President.

In 1825, the Legislature of Tennessee, on motion of Mr. Kennedy, nominated Jackson again for the presidency, and, in 1828, he was chosen by a large majority.

With the eight years' administration of this eminent President, we have in this work little to do. The great action of his civil life was the abolition of the United States Bank, an institution which threatened to become to our government the imperium in imperio, which the Bank of England is in the government of England. All men, at this day, seem to bear testimony to the wisdom of Jackson, in that perilous encounter with the incorporated capital of the Union,—an encounter in which he was assailed with defamation, treachery, faction, and even by the assassin's hand. But Providence preserved him through all; and those who hated him unsparingly in

life, have, of late, been offering repentant prayers upon his grave.

In both presidential contests, the general was enthusiastically sustained by "the Irish vote." Apart from his kindred origin, his military characteristics and thorough democracy secured their suffrages. His surviving friends often repeat that he considered that vote an essential element of American democracy.

Of the various men, of Irish origin, who found important employments under Jackson's administration, Edward Kavanagh, of Maine, was the most noted. He was of that Leinster house which has given so many distinguished public men to continental Europe.* He had been

a state senator and acting governor of Maine. A man of strong Irish and Catholic tendencies, and, at the same time, an ardent Jacksonian. Him, the President sent minister to Portugal, where he gave unbroken satisfaction to his own and the native government. He was a man of refined tastes, and, on his return from Lisbon, brought over an excellent collection of Spanish and Portuguese literature, with which he enriched various institutions and libraries. He died at his residence at Damariscotta, in 1842, at an acvanced age.

During the greater part of Jackson's presidency, Mr. Clay was the leader of the Whig opposition. The unrivalled parliamentary powers of that famous leader would have shaken almost any other man; but Jackson was incorporated into the very being of the American people, and could not be separated from them. Still, a numerous and formidable party obeyed the banner of Clay, and among these, Senator Porter, of Louisiana, was one of the most devoted and most able, during Jackson's

* Within a century it could count, in Europe, an Aulic Councillor, a Governor of Prague, and a Field Marshal Kavanagh, at Vienna; a Field Marshal in Poland; a Grand Chamberlain in Saxony; a Count of the Holy Roman Empire; a French Conventionist of 1793, Godefroi Cavaignac, co-editor with Armand Carrell, and Eugene Cavaignac, some time Dictator, in France.

† A portion of his collection enriches the library of the Jesuit College, at Worcester, Mass.

second presidency. This gentleman was the son of the Rev. Wm. Porter, pastor of Grey Abbey, Newtownards, county Down, who was executed at the door of his own church, for treason, in 1798. His orphan son came with an uncle to the United States; but we shall let the friends who mourned his death, record his life.

On the second of February, 1841, his death was announced, by Messrs. Barrow and Benton, in the United States Senate. They furnished this account of his useful and interesting career.

Mr. Benton, of Missouri, said :

"I am the oldest personal friend whom the illustrious deceased can have upon this floor, and amongst the oldest whom he can have in the United States. It is now, sir, more than the period of a generation, more than the third of a century, since the then emigrant Irish boy, Alexander Porter, and myself met on the banks of the Cumberland River, at Nashville, in the state of Tennessee, when commenced a friendship which death only dissolved on his part. We belonged to a circle of young lawyers and students at law, who had the world before them, and nothing but their exertions to depend upon. First a clerk in his uncle's store, then a student at law, and always a lover of books, the young Porter was one of that circle, and it was the custom of all that belonged to it to spend their leisure hours in the delightful occupation of reading. History, poetry, elocution, biography, the ennobling speeches of the living and the dead, were our social recreation; and the youngest member of our circle was one of our favorite readers. He read well, because he comprehended clearly, felt strongly, remarked beautifully upon striking passages, and gave a new charm to the whole with his rich, mellifluous Irish accent. It was then that I became acquainted with Ireland and her children, read the ample story of her wrongs, learnt the long list of her martyred patriots' names, sympathized in their fate, and imbibed the feelings for a noble and oppressed people, which the extinction of my own life can alone extinguish.