French and Spanish population, by declaring martial law, and quieted the apprehensions of many of the inhabitants by the confidence with which he assured them that the British would never reach the city.

The leading traits in Jackson's character, promptitude in decision, and activity in execution, had at New Orleans a wide field for their display. The enemy landed undiscovered at noon on the 23d of December: in the night after that day, he was attacked by the fearless general. With a militia force, numbering but half that of the enemy, Jackson broke into the camp, and drove before him the bravest veterans of England, the conquerors of Europe. The British had expected little opposition, were certain of success, and unable to conceive, notwithstanding what they had heard of the character of their opponent, that he would hazard his reputation by attacking, on its chosen ground, an army famed throughout the world for the victories it had gained. The attack of the 23d was of the utmost importance: new life was infused into the American army, while the ardour of the British became changed to a depressing state of doubt and uncertainty. Time was now consumed in preparations before considered unnecessary; and every hour that the British delayed the attack, was improved by the Americans in increasing the strength of their works, that they might make a successful resistance when it should be made. Several bales of cotton belonging to a Frenchman, had been applied with others to strengthening an embrasure on the line. Apprehensive that it would receive injury, he proceeded in person to General Jackson to reclaim it, and demand its delivery. When he had stated his business, the general desired to know whether he was employed in any military service. He replied Then the general directed a musket to be put ordered him on the line, remarking that none had a better right to fight than those who had property to de

that he was not. in his hand, and

fend.

The morning of the 8th of January was chosen for a final

assault upon the American works. The British marched to the attack, confident that a warm fire from a body of veteran troops would instantly put to flight a whole host of militia. An unremitting fire from cannons, rifles, and muskets, answered their discharge of bombs, balls, and Congreve rockets. The commander-in-chief, and two of his aids, fell victims to their presumption, and the horror-stricken soldiers refused again to encounter the destruction which had fallen upon their comrades. The efforts of their general to stop them were unavailing; they acted the very part which they had assigned to the militia, abandoned the contest and the field in disorder. On the 18th of January they re-embarked with the greatest silence and caution, the British commander leaving to the hospitality of General Jackson eighty of his soldiers, who were too severely wounded to be removed. He suspended for the present, he said, all further operations against New Orleans, and requested his humanity towards the wounded he had left, and whom necessity had compelled him to abandon.

To the glory of having freed the country from a most formidable foe, General Jackson was now to add that of laying aside his official dignity, to answer at the bar as a private citizen a charge of having infracted the laws of his country.

During the continuance of martial law, General Jackson had had some difficulties with Judge Hall, which ended in an order to the judge to leave the encampment. When peace was restored, the judge summoned Jackson to show cause why an attachment for contempt should not issue against him. Jackson restrained the fury of the people, appeared at the bar of the court, suffered the judge to become the prosecutor and arbiter of his own grievances, and paid the fine of one thousand dollars which was conceived to be due to the offended majesty of the laws. Before he died, however, the general had the satisfaction to receive by a vote of Congress a reversal of the judgment of Hall, and the return of the fine with interest.

For some time after the victory of New Orleans, bands of Se

minoles, Creeks, and runaway negroes found an asylum in the neutral Spanish territory of Pensacola, whence they made hostile incursions upon the frontier settlements. Towards the close of the year 1819, the general government ordered Jackson to go there with a sufficient force to repress these incursions, and gave him authority to pursue the enemy across the Spanish line, if necessary. He routed the Indians in several engagements, and ascertained that these ravages had been made at the instigation of British emissaries, two of whom, Arbuthnot and Ambrister, were captured at the destruction of an Indian village. They were tried by a court-martial and condemned to death, and General Jackson immediately carried the sentence into execution. The campaign was speedily terminated; and General Jackson was about marching to Nashville, when he learned that the governor of Pensacola had afforded protection to the enemy. He marched against and occupied this post with twelve hundred United States soldiers; but being attacked by some of the public journals for what they considered a violation of international law, he repaired to Washington, to explain more fully his transactions. He was received in that city, and in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, with the highest honours.

From July to October 1821, he was engaged, as governor of the Floridas, in organizing a territorial government for those provinces, which had been ceded to the United States. In 1824 he was a candidate for the presidency; but four competitors having been nominated, no one received the number of votes necessary to an election. The choice of president devolving on the House of Representatives, Mr. Adams was elected. In 1828, however, General Jackson was elected to the presidency, and held that office during eight years-one of the most stormy periods of our political history. He retired to the Hermitage, on the inauguration of his successor, in 1837, and enjoyed there the sweets of private life until his death, June 8th, 1845, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. Death found him in the full pos

session of his faculties, and perfectly prepared for his long-expected advent.

It can hardly be expected that the present generation will do justice to the character of Jackson. So great was his firmness and decision of character, so little could the opinions of men or the consequences to himself move him from what he thought the path of duty, and so ardent was his attachment to his country and his friends, that his opponents have ever been most bitter enemies, and his friends almost his worshippers. But the closing scenes in the drama of his life give a fair illustration of his character. On leaving the service of his country in the highest station in which she places her most favoured sons, he retires far from the pomp and show of the world, and lives in true republican simplicity. There he devotes himself still to the object ever nearest his heart-his country's good-constantly watching over her interests, and often advising his fellow-citizens on the subjects he esteemed of the most importance. His letters evince the warmest patriotism and the happiest Christian resignation. And when the last trying scene is at hand, and even when he feels the chill hand of death upon him, he forgets not his republicanism, his characteristic simplicity. He whom a nation delighted to honour, over whose grave they would gladly raise a storied monument, must be buried without show or parade in an humble tomb beside the remains of his "beloved wife."

EULOGY

DELIVERED AT WASHINGTON CITY, JUNE 27, 1845,

BY

GEORGE BANCROFT,

SECRETARY OF THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES.

That age

THE men of the American Revolution are no more! of creative power has passed away. The last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence has long since left the earth. Washington lies near his own Potomac, surrounded by his family and his servants. Adams, the Colossus of Independence, reposes in the modest grave-yard of his native region. Jefferson sleeps on the heights of his own Monticello, whence his eye overlooked his beloved Virginia. Madison, the last survivor of the men who made our constitution, lives only in our hearts. But who shall say that the heroes, in whom the image of God shone most brightly, do not live for ever? They were filled with the vast conceptions which called America into being; they lived for those conceptions, and their deeds praise them.

We are met to commemorate the virtues of one who shed his blood for our independence, took part in winning the territory and forming the early institutions of the West, and was imbued with all the great ideas which constitute the moral force of our country. On the spot where he gave his solemn fealty to the people-here, where he pledged himself before the world, to freedom, to the constitution, and to the laws-we meet to pay our tribute to the memory of the last great name, which gathers round itself all the associations that form the glory of America.

South Carolina gave a birthplace to Andrew Jackson. On its remote frontier, far up on the forest-clad banks of the Catawba, in a region where the settlers were just beginning to cluster, his eye first saw the light. There his infancy sported in the ancient forests, and his mind was nursed to freedom by their influence. He was the youngest son of an Irish emigrant of Scottish origin, who, two years after the great war of Frederick of Prussia, fled to America for relief from indigence and oppression. His birth was