He tells me to say to you and Captain Kingsley that in the multiplicity of business, if he had or could have seen any advantages for your better prospects, he would have written Captain K. long since. You are in the best country in America. Oh, how has this place been overrated. We have had a great many deaths; still I know it is a healthy climate. Amongst many disadvantages, it has few advantages. I pity Mr. J., he will have so much fatigue. Not one minister of the gospel has come to this place yet; no not one; but we have a prayer-meeting every Sabbath. The house is crowded so there is not room for them. Sincere prayers are constantly sent up to the Hearer of Prayer for a faithful minister. Oh, what a reviving, refreshing scene it would be to the Christians, though few in number. The non-professors desire it. Blessed be God, he has a few even here that are bold in declaring their faith in Christ. You named, my dear friend, my going to the theater. I went once, and then with much reluctance. I felt so little interest in it, however, I shall not take up much time in apologizing. My situation is a peculiar one at this time. I trust in the Lord my dear child, Andrew, reached home in safety. I think you all must feel a great deal for me, knowing how my very heart recoiled at the idea of what I had to encounter. Many have been disappointed. I have not. I saw it as plain as I now do when it is passing. Oh Lord, forgive, if thy will, all those my enemies that had an agency in the matter. Many wander about like lost sheep; all have been disappointed in offices. Crage has a constable's place of no value. The President made all the appointments, and sent them from the city of Washington."

General Jackson himself wrote home to his friends in a similar strain. A letter of his, written on the 3d of September, to his brother-in-law, Captain John Donelson, may find place here. Only a small part of it relates to Florida, but the other portions well illustrate the care and exactness with which he managed his business affairs. This letter, for various reasons, which will be apparent to the intelligent reader, demands particular attention.

GENERAL JACKSON TO CAPTAIN JOHN DONELSON, SEN.

"PENSACOLA, September 2d, 1821.

"DEAR SIR: Last night's mail brought me yours of the 1st of August, for which I sincerely thank you. I have received, after a tedious delay on the passage, all your letters, and for your attention to my interest in my absence I cherish, and will through life, the most friendly and lively recollection. I have received no letter from Mr. Saunders on the subject of my cotton. Dr. Beebe writes, the 28th of July, that on that day he stated to him the amount of sales of my cotton to be five hundred and fifty-one dollars. There is an express agreement that he is to pay me the exchange at Nashville for the money of New Orleans. This I have no doubt he will acknowledge. Old Mr. Richardson must be paid as soon as the work is done; and when you apply to Mr. Saunders for money for this purpose, you will please settle with him the exchange, and have it added to the amount of sales before you receive it. That for the use of the money for which the cotton was sold at New Orleans he is to allow me at Nashville the exchange for New Orleans money, I am well assured he will acknowledge. I hope before the other contract for the cedar becomes due I shall be at home. Should I not, I have informed Mr. Saunders that the money is to be applied by you to those debts, and that I had given you a memorandum of them and an order for the money. I am certain he will pay it when you apply. The balance of cotton coming to you you will retain out of the first money Mr. Saunders pays out of the proceeds of the cotton.

"I hope we will be able to leave here by the first of October for home. Mrs. Jackson's health is not good, and I am determined to travel her as early as my business and her health will permit, even if I should be compelled to come back to settle my business and turn over the government to my successor. I am determined to resign my office the moment Congress meets, and live near you the balance of my life.

"I fear the paper system has and will ruin the State. Its demoralizing effects are clearly seen and spoken of everywhere, and I have but little doubt (at least I fear it) that it has predominated in your late elections, although I am unadvised how they have terminated. But from Dr. Butler's letter I learn that he is doubtful that Colonel Wood will lose his election. If this should be the case, let every honest man take care of himself, and have nothing to do with the new rags of the State; for, be assured, it will be a reign of immoral rule, and the interest of speculators will be alone consulted during the existence of the new dynasty.

"Say to Mr. Saunders that he well recollects that I objected to the new State bank bills. I never had one of them, and I never will receive one of them. In this country you could not pass them, and get one dollar in specie

for ten dollars in them. I therefore protest against receiving any of tho trash, and I am sure Mr. Saunders will not offer it. I will take the old State bank or its branches at the exchange for Orleans.

"Before this reaches you, Colonel Butler and our little son will be with you. I hope, I trust, you will extend your care over him until we are where he has gone. You may be sure your sister will not remain long behind. We all enjoy tolerable health at present, but I am wearied with business this hot weather.

"Present us affectionately to your lady and family, and all our friends, and accept for yourself our choicest blessings. Adieu.

"ANDREW JACKSON."

With the insight afforded by these letters into the Governor's feelings, the reader will be able to judge correctly the extraordinary scenes to which Mrs. Jackson alludes, when she states that Colonel Callava had been in the calaboose. "Which is a terrible thing really," remarks the good lady. It was not a very terrible thing really. It was only terrible apparently—terrible in print.

One or two anecdotes, however, before we proceed to that agitating subject. A few days after General Jackson's arrival at Pensacola a fire broke out near the center of the town. The Spanish population rushed to the public square to view the spectacle; but not a man of them attempted to extinguish the flames. General Jackson soon arrived, and, seeing the apathy of the people, uttered one of his fiercest yells, which was intended merely to rouse the spectators to exertion. The poor Spaniards, not comprehending the phrase employed by the General, and having imbibed impressions respecting the ferocity of his disposition that rendered him an object of terror, were struck with consternation, and took to their heels. The General was left in the square the sole spectator of the conflagration, until the troops came running in from the barracks.

Another event of a far different nature occurred about this time, which I would gladly omit, but must not. Judge Brackenridge tells the story: "In the plenitude of his power he permitted a fatal duel to be fought in Pensacola, in the most public and notorious manner, when a single word from

him would have prevented it! I allude to the unfortunate affair of Hull and Randal, two young officers; the former just then reformed, the other still in the army. Randal came from Baton Rouge on purpose, it was generally said, to draw a challenge from Hull, who had thrown out threats against him. The challenge was accordingly given by Hull; the duel took place; Dr. Bronaugh, the bosom friend of General Jackson, acting as physician. I was present when the doctor returned to communicate the result to the General, who was waiting impatiently to hear it. Poor Hull was shot through the heart; his pistol, which was a hair trigger, had stopped at half cock. The General was much displeased. 'D—n the pistol,' said he; 'by G-d, to think that a brave man should risk his life on a hair trigger!' He was sufficiently generous not to arrest Randal, but gave him an intimation instantly to quit the town, which might have been given before the affair had taken place."*

General Jackson, then, still believed in the pistol. Yes, reader; his wife had not yet succeeded in converting him from that bad faith. Will she ever do it? Not till her tongue is still in death; not till she has for many a year spoken to him from her tomb in the Hermitage garden.

CHAPTER XLV

COLONEL CALLAVA IN THE CALABOOSE.

Or the governors of Pensacola with whom we have had to do in the course of our history Colonel Callava, the last of the Spanish governors, was by far the most agreeable and the most respectable character. He was a Castilian, of a race akin to the Saxon, of light complexion, a handsome, wellgrown man, of dignified presence and refined manners. He

*Letters of the Hon. H. M. Brackenridge. Pamphlet, 1832.

won rapid promotion by good service in the Peninsular war, and was a colonel and a governor before he was forty years of age. After the surrender of his town to General Jackson, he still retained, as he supposed, the office of Spanish commissioner, and continued to reside in the place, to superintend the embarkation of artillery, and other unfinished business. With the officers of the fourth regiment, which formed the American garrison of Pensacola, he was a favorite, and was frequently invited by them to entertainments. Nor were the American ladies in the town averse to the society of the handsome Castilian; though most of them found it difficult to converse with a gentleman whose ignorance of the English language was as complete as their ignorance of Spanish.

If an angel from heaven had appeared to General Jackson in the guise of a Spanish governor he would not have liked him-so rooted was his prejudice against Spanish governors. And that Spanish governor from heaven would have found it difficult to so far forget or overlook what General Jackson had formerly done in Florida as to regard the General with an entirely friendly eye. The presence, therefore, of Colonel Callava in Pensacola-particularly after what had occurred previous to the surrender-furnished the material for a grand explosion, provided the governor and the ex-governor should by any accident come into collision.

A collision was destined to occur, and a worthy gentleman of General Jackson's own household was to be its innocent and astonished cause.

On his journey to Florida, General Jackson fell in with a young lawyer and scholar, Mr. Henry M. Brackenridge, of Pennsylvania, who was also on his way to Pensacola. Mr. Brackenridge, who had already distinguished himself as a reviewer, author and pamphleteer, and had held a foreign appointment, had been assured by the President that he should not be forgotten in the distribution of the Florida offices, and he was going to the new territory upon that assurance. As he was an accomplished linguist, particularly well versed in the Spanish and French languages, General Jackson, who