During Masot’s administration there occurred a transaction which occupied a place in the investigations of the special committee of the senate of the United States, appointed, in 1818, to inquire into and report upon the occurrences of the Seminole war of that year, prominent amongst them the capture of St. Marks and Pensacola. The committee condemned all Jackson’s proceedings and seem to have even harbored the suspicion that a land speculation prompted him to exact a cession of the latter place. The circumstances which induced the suspicion are detailed in an affidavit of General John B. Eaton, afterwards secretary of war under Jackson and governor of Florida, which appears amongst the documents accompanying the report of the committee.[[65]]
It seems that, in 1817, Eaton and James Jackson of Nashville—nowise related to General Jackson—foreseeing that Florida was to be acquired by the United States, resolved to make a purchase of lots in Pensacola and lands in its vicinity. To them were afterwards added six associates, John McCrae, James Jackson, Jr., John C. McElmore, John Jackson, Thomas Childress and John Donelson, who was a nephew of Mrs. Jackson. Donelson and a Mr. Gordon were appointed to proceed to Pensacola to make the purchases. As a measure of security to Donelson and Gordon, Eaton applied to General Jackson and obtained for them a letter of introduction to Masot. Provided with this letter, which facilitated their operations, Donelson and Gordon went to Pensacola and fulfilled their mission by buying a large number of unimproved town lots, sixty acres of land adjoining the town and a tract on the bay two or three miles to the westward.
Eaton says: General Jackson had no interest in the speculation, nor was he consulted respecting it, his only connection with it being the letter to Masot. As there is no allusion to the transaction in the report of the committee, they must have concluded that the suspicion which prompted the search for evidence respecting it was unfounded. Such at least must be the just conclusion from the silence in respect to the matter observed by a document so full of pointed condemnation of Jackson’s acts, of the manner in which his army was raised and the officers commissioned by himself, the executions of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, the capture of St. Marks and Pensacola, the establishment of a provisional government, the extension of the revenue laws of the United States over the conquered province, and the appointments for it of a governor and a collector of the customs.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Treaty Ratified—Jackson Appointed Provisional Governor—Goes to Pensacola—Mrs. Jackson in Pensacola—Change of Flags—Callava Imprisoned—Territorial Government—Governor Duval—First Legislature Meets at Pensacola.
Although the United States was unremitting in its efforts to induce Spain to ratify the treaty of cession, her ratification was postponed from time to time under various pretexts. Prominent English journals having declared, that if Florida was ceded to the United States, Great Britain, in order to maintain her influence in the Gulf of Mexico, should insist upon a surrender to her of the Island of Cuba, public opinion in the United States settled down to the conclusion that the delay of the ratification was due to British intrigue. But, that this opinion was ill founded, is evident from President Monroe’s message of the seventh of December, 1819, in which he says: “In the course which the Spanish government has on this occasion thought proper to pursue, it is satisfactory to know that they have not been countenanced by any European power. On the contrary, the opinion and wishes of both France and Great Britain have not been withheld either from the United States or Spain, and have been unequivocal in favor of ratification.”
The procrastination of Spain was the occasion of intense public feeling in the United States; which at length formally manifested itself on March 8, 1820, in a resolution reported by the committee of Foreign Relations of the House of Representatives, to authorize the President to take possession of West Florida. Patience, however, prevailed, and on February 19, 1821, the ratification took place.
General Jackson was shortly afterwards appointed Provisional Governor of Florida, and instructed to proceed to Pensacola with a small military force, to receive from the Spanish authorities a formal surrender of West Florida. On April 18, he left the Hermitage, with Mrs. Jackson and his adopted son, Andrew Jackson Donelson, to enter upon the long, tedious journey to Pensacola, via New Orleans.
A stage of the journey in Southern Alabama, brought him to a military post, in the neighborhood of which, William Weatherford, the Creek hero, resided. At the suggestion of General Jackson, Colonel Brooke, the commandant of the Post, and his host, invited Weatherford to dine with his conqueror. The invitation was accepted. When the Great Chief appeared, Jackson cordially met him, and taking him by the hand, presented him to Mrs. Jackson as “the bravest man in his tribe.”