"Oh, yes, sir; yes, indeed!" exclaimed Walter with enthusiasm. "I for one would like greatly to see Mobile Bay with its fort. Morgan is the name?"
"Yes; Fort Morgan is at the extremity of Mobile Point, where Fort Bowyer stood in the War of 1812-14. You remember what happened there at that time?"
"It was attacked by the British, wasn't it, sir?"
"Yes; in September, 1814, by a British squadron of two brigs and two sloops of war, aided by a land force of one hundred and thirty marines and six hundred Indians, led by Captain Woodbine, who had been trying to drill them at Pensacola.
"Florida did not belong to us at that time; the Spaniards had made a settlement at Pensacola in 1696, were still there at the time of our last war with England, and favored the British, who there, as well as in other parts of Florida, organized expeditions against the United States, the Spanish governor, though professing neutrality, evidently siding with and giving them aid and comfort."
"And when then did we get possession of Florida, sir?" asked Walter.
"In July of 1821," answered the captain.
"Didn't Jackson capture Pensacola at one time during that war with England, Captain?" asked Evelyn.
"Yes; in the attack about which Walter was just asking, before Lafitte forwarded to New Orleans those documents showing how the British were trying to get him into their service, Jackson had perceived that the Spaniards were, as I have said, secretly siding with the British, and now, with the positive proof furnished by those papers before him, he squarely accused Manrequez, the Spanish governor at Pensacola, of bad faith.
"Then followed a spicy correspondence, which Jackson closed by writing to the governor, 'In future I beg you to withhold your insulting charges against my government for one more inclined to listen to slander than I am; nor consider me any more a diplomatic character unless so proclaimed from the mouth of my cannon.'