“A warm session, General!” says he. “What do you mean by that?”
“Ned,” replies the General, “if I am beaten here, I shall fall back on the city, fire it, and fight it out in the flames! Nothing for the maintenance of the enemy shall be left. New Orleans destroyed, I shall occupy a position on the river above, cut off supplies, and, since I can't drive, I shall starve the English out of the country. There is this difference, Ned, between me and those fellows from the Legislature. They think only of the city and its safety. For my side, I'm not here to defend the city, but the nation at large.”
On the heels of this, the Legislature whispers of surrendering Louisiana to the English by resolution. It is scarcely feasible as a plan, but it angers the General. He stations a guard at the door of the chamber and turns the members away.
“We can dispense with your sessions,” says he. “We have laws enough; our great need now is men and muskets at the front.”
The patricians of the Legislature are scandalized as being shut out of their chamber.
“Did I not tell you,” cries the prophetic House Speaker, “did I not tell you this fellow was a desperado, and would wage war like a savage?”
The members retire from the guarded doors, cursing the General under their breath. Their doorkeeper, a low, common person, is so struck by what the General has said anent men and muskets, that he gets a gun and joins that “desperado.” And wherefore no? Patriotism has been the mark of vulgar souls in every age.
Colonel Coffee's hunting-shirt scouts come in and report the watch fires of those sixteen hundred of the English advance winking and blinking among the sugar stubble.
“Ah!” says the General, “I've a mind to disturb their dreams.”
The General dispatches word to Commodore Patterson to have the Carolina in readiness to act with his forces. Then he sends for the indispensable Coffee.