USA > Florida > The purchase of Florida; its history and diplomacy > Part 19
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Alexander Arbuthnot, a Scotchman seventy years of
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age, a man of considerable ability and education, had come to Florida in 1817 attracted by the prospect of a flourishing Indian trade. He established as friendly relations as pos- sible with the Indians for his own security and advantage. By fairer treatment and more equitable prices he secured a large part of the Indian trade to the indignation and loss of an older firm who had habitually cheated and swindled the savages. He soon received from the Creek chief power of attorney to act for him in all affairs which concerned the tribe. At the request of the Indian chief, he wrote letters to the governor of the Bahamas, the British minister at Washington, to Colonel Nicholls at London, the governor of Florida, the officers commanding the neighboring United States forts, General Mitchell and others. The treaty of Ghent had been violated, for the lands taken from the Creeks by the treaty of Fort Jackson had not been restored. The Georgians were murdering and plundering the In- dians. The English government ought to send an agent to report upon the American course in Florida. Thus trad- ing with the redskins, by a mere chance he reached St. Marks in April of 1818. There, hearing for the first time of the approach of Jackson and the arrival of Mckeever's fleet, he dispatched a letter to his son, in charge of his schooner lying at anchor in the Suwanee River below the towns of Boleck --- and bade him hurry his goods to a place of safety, get them on the ship if possible and sail for Cedar Keys Bay.
On April 6th, after having burned Fowltown where he found the redpole decorated with the scalps of a year's accumulation, Jackson halted near St. Marks and sent his aide-de-camp to demand admittance to the town. To pre- vent in the future such gross breaches of neutrality, as had characterized the past. Jackson informed the governor that it was necessary that St. Marks should be occupied and gar- risoned by United States troops and held until the termina-
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tion of the war. The Spanish officer in command, Don Francisco Casa y Luengo, replied that he would have to write for authority to admit the troops, to do so personally was beyond his power. This answer was delivered to Gen- eral Jackson on the morning of April 7th. He instantly re- plied by taking possession of the fort, replacing the Spanish flag with that of the United States, and quartering the American troops within the fortress. The governor could and did offer no resistance. He was forced to content him- self with a formal protest against such unusual and unwar- ranted proceedings. Arbuthnot was found within the fort, preparing to leave the town, and was promptly seized by order of General Jackson.
In the meantime Captain Mckeever had captured two more prisoners of note. Violating all rules of national law and by a ruse as disgraceful as it was exceptional, Mc- Keever entered the bay with the English flag at his mast- head and thus lured on board his ship the Indian prophet Francis and his companion Himollemico- the latter the savage who had attacked Lieutenant Scott's expedition. These Indians, supposing the ship to be the one long looked for from England with supplies and munitions of war, had boarded her and upon being enticed into the cabin were seized and bound. The next day they were sent up to the fort and hung by Jackson's order. For the capture of St. Marks, history and investigation are unable to present an adequate justification. But we must stand aghast at Jackson's im- perial assumption of the dread prerogative of arbitrarily dooming men to death without a trial. The prophet Francis was an educated man of pleasing manners, humane dispo- sition, well versed in English and Spanish - indeed a model chief. Himollemico was the type of the cruel, morose, bloodthirsty savage, who probably richly deserved his fate, but no one has ever explained by what law or custom, observed in the service of the United States, they were put
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to death, when thus captured by an ignoble stratagem, not even on the field of battle, and without the bare formality of a trial of any sort.
Jackson pushed on as rapidly as possible for Suwanee, the headquarters of Boleck ("Billy Bowlegs"), the Seminole chief, and the refuge of the troublesome negroes, half breeds, and fugitive slaves. Arbuthnot had a trading post here, and it was to this place that he had written the let- ter to his son directing him to remove the stock of goods. In the afternoon of April 17th Jackson, forming his army into three divisions, rushed on to overwhelm the village, but found it abandoned.
Arbuthnot's warning to his son had been read to Bow- legs who was thus able, with his women and children, to escape into the swamps, so inaccessible and so plentiful in that region. Jackson was baffled and, we need not be told, enraged. The town was burned. Nearby were taken prisoners an Englishman by the name of Robert Ambrister and three companions, two of them negroes, who, unaware of the course of events, had accidentally stumbled upon the American camp.
On one of the negroes was found Arbuthnot's letter to his son. From Cook, the white man, it was learned that the letter had been read to Bowlegs and was responsible for the escape of the Indians and the evacuation of the town. Am- brister was found to be an agent of Arbuthnot, with head- quarters on Arbuthnot's schooner then at the mouth of the Suwanee River. Lieutenant Gadsden was hastily dispatch- ed to capture the schooner. Jackson had considered Arbuthnot an English emissary. The escape of the In- dians enraged him and, we may say, bemuddled his mind. He now considered Arbuthnot's letter an overt act of inter- ference in the war.
The Seminole war was now ended. It had been con- temptible and meager in military results, but it was prolific
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in its surprising complications. On April 20th, the Georgia troops marched homeward to be disbanded. On the 24th General McIntosh and his brigade of Indians were dismissed. On the 25th General Jackson with his Tennes- see militia and his regulars was again at Fort St. Marks.
Having accepted the cession of West Florida to the United States, General Jackson further assumed the author- ity of constituting a provisional government for the con- quered province. He appointed one of his officers, Colonel King, civil and military governor. He extended the rev- enue laws of the United States over the country and ap- pointed another of his officers, Captain Gadsden, collector of the port of Pensacola, with authority to execute those laws. He declared what civil laws should be enforced and provided for the preservation of the archives as well as for the care and protection of what had been the property of the Spanish crown but which now, in the general's con- ception, had become the property of the United States.
The war was over, but one more act of imperial au- thority remained to complete the cycle of Jackson's astound- ing conduct. At St. Marks was convened a "special court" of fourteen officers to try Ambrister and Arbuthnot and · determine what punishment, if any, should be meted out to them. That they were not unceremoniously hanged or shot, as were the Indians, we must admit was a concession on the part of Jackson hardly to have been expected. Of all the tribunals convened to sit on cases, the court-martial is without doubt the least likely to dispense any measure of equity. To mete out vengeance rather than justice seems to be their purpose. The constituent members are not selected by reason of any special fitness for their task or be- cause they possess in any measure the judicial qualities. And of all the iniquities which may be credited to this form of tribunal, it is doubtful whether any were ever more reprehensible than those perpetrated by the one which was
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convened that twenty-eighth of April, over which General Gaines presided and before which Arbuthnot was arraigned.
Three charges were filed against the unfortunate Scotchman :
I. Inciting the Creeks to war against the United States.
2. Acting as a spy and supplying them with munitions of war.
3. Inciting the Indians to murder William Hambly and Edmund Doyle.
The third charge was so absurd that it was withdrawn after the court had determined that it possessed no jurisdic- tion in the matter. Such a violation of all known or accepted methods of procedure and rules of evidence has seldom been seen, in even the most arbitrary tribunals. There was no real evidence against Arbuthnot on any charge, that would stand in an ordinary court of law. His business and presence in Florida were open and obvious. He had, while using his influence and ability in behalf of the Indians, always advised them to peace and submission rather than to a course which he well knew would lead to their certain defeat and extinction. For his construction of the treaty of Ghent there is much to be said. Indeed diplo- matic measures were necessary to set it aside. As for his letter to his own son, written entirely in the line of his bus- iness, it could hardly be ground for censure though it did render Jackson's march of two hundred miles all but fruit- less. To the question, can traders be executed if their in- formation, not transmitted through the lines, frustrate mili- tary purposes, we imagine there can be but one answer. At any rate Arbuthnot was found guilty by a two-thirds vote of the court and sentenced to be hanged.
Ambrister was tried on the charge of aiding and com- forting the enemy and waging war on the United States. He had no ostensible business in Florida - an adventurer
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in short. It was proved that he had come to Florida on "Woodbine's business," that he had captured Arbuthnot's schooner and plundered his store, that he had sent into New Providence for arms and that he had sent a party "to „oppose" the American invasion. Ambrister made no formal defense but put himself on the mercy of the court. He was promptly pronounced guilty and sentenced to be shot. A member of the court, however, securing a reconsideration of the sentence, he was awarded fifty lashes on the bare back and confinement with ball and chain at hard labor for one year.
In his orders of April 29th, Jackson, disapproving the revised sentence of Ambrister, ordered the first finding car- ried out. Accordingly Arbuthnot was hanged from the yard arm of his schooner, and Ambrister took his place as a target before an execution squad.
Jackson had committed a murder all the more atrocious because done under the guise of legal form. Arbuthnot was executed upon the testimony of men who had the strongest interest in his conviction, and upon evidence of a nature which would not today be tolerated in any proceeding, crim- inal or civil, in any court of this country. The presiding officer of that court was the officer whose arrogant, unrea- soning treatment of the Fowltown Indians precipitated the war. And yet the war was concluded and the enemy crushed and obliterated before these two lives were sacri- ficed. Did the rules of war demand instant death? Would it not have been the part of charity, nay of reason, to for- ward the case to Washington?
With his dying breath Arbuthnot declared that his country would avenge his execution. Political reasons alone, we may believe, prevented the fulfillment of the un- fortunate victim's prophecy. The executions produced the most intense indignation in England, and all Europe stood aghast. At an entertainment given by the French ambas-
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sador on July 30, 1818, the foreign ambassadors and min- isters crowded about our Mr. Rush in eager curiosity to know of this matter of Pensacola and of the probable war with Spain. That the whole affair smacked of hostilities, with either Spain or England or both, was the general im- pression. And to Europe long drunk with the mad Na- poleonic carnival of fire and slaughter another war would prove an object of unalloyed pleasure at least to those nations which might stand at the ringside, as it were, and be the spectators. After the kaleidoscopic metamorphoses which had marked the days of the great conqueror a few years of peace had greatly bored the ennuye continent.
The executions became the subject of parliamentary inquiry. The excitement was at fever heat. Stocks fell. The newspapers were particularly bitter in their denunciation of the United States and the offending general was addressed in their columns by the opprobrious names of "tyrant," "ruf- fian," and "murderer," and was placarded about the streets of London. "We can hardly believe that anything so offensive to public decorum could be admitted even in America" was the comment of one journal. After a full deliberation the cabinet however declared that the conduct of Arbuthnot and Ambrister had been unjustifiable, and did not therefore call for the special interference of Great Britain. And in the ensuing days of seething popular passion when war would have been certain "if the ministry had but held up a finger," the cabinet stood firm for peace. We may well believe with the traditional jealousy with which Great Britain has ever guarded the interests and the lives of her subjects that there was some ulterior motive which had determined Lord Castlereagh and his compeers in their decision.
Since the termination of the Napoleonic wars and the second treaty of Paris England had become isolated and now
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stood alone against the continental powers. 1 To the United States only could she look for support against the reaction- ary doctrines promulgated in the holy alliance. For Eng- land to go to war with the United States would have left the European powers free to pursue their purposes without a single restraining force and would leave Great Britain without one ally to whom she might turn for either moral or material support in those principles for whose recognition, she was then working. To declare war then would be merely to accentuate her isolation and invite worse calamities. At any rate the inquiry was not pressed by England as all patriotic citizens must hope the United States would push a similar one.
The two Indians who had been hanged had no friends to demand an explanation or reparation, but their execution was a most awkward thing to justify before the world. The Creeks were not a nation in contemplation of inter- national law - not the possessors of the soil on which they had lived and fought, because enjoying only what, by a suitable stretch of national ethics or morals, may be termed the right of temporary use or occupation, subject to the higher and ultimate title which vested in the nation. There had been no declaration of war, yet the Indians were not rebels against the United States and in the eyes of any but Jackson they possessed some belligerent rights. Though there never was any proof that anybody incited the Indians yet, whatever rights the redskins possessed, the Englishmen, even had they been complete allies, must have been entitled to. If the Indians were not to be slain like wild beasts or executed by court-martial for levying war on the United States, the Englishmen were done to death without legal or moral right.
Learning that some five hundred hostile Indians were receiving friendly asylum at Pensacola, Jackson hurried
1. November 20, 1815.
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off to that place with a small detachment of regulars and militia. On his march he was met by a messenger from the governor of that town, protesting against his summary course and ordering him either to quit the province of West Florida or be prepared to meet force with force. If this notice was intended to overawe Jackson and induce him to withdraw it failed of its purpose most signally. It only aroused and excited him, and on May 24th he entered Pensacola without the slightest opposition beyond that of the quill. Capturing Fort Carios de Barrancas, whither the Spanish had retreated, and leaving a garrison of American troops, some five days later Jackson was marching homeward. On his way he learned of an attack by the Georgia militia on the villages of friendly and allied Indians. A fiery correspondence between Governor Rabun of Georgia and General Jackson ensued in which, though the general was undoubtedly right, he provoked anger and discord by his violent, impetuous manner where a temperate remon- strance, judiciously administered, would have better gained the object in view. 1
In the whole Florida campaign we have seen that prej- udice and assumption took the place of evidence and in- formation. Jackson's theory "of making the United States as uncomfortable a neighbor to Spain as he could," had borne fruit. His only regret was that when he took Pensa- cola he "had not stormed the works, captured the governor,
1. The following is an abstract from a sarcastic letter written by Governor Rabun to General Jackson, Sept. 1, 1818 : "I hope you will now permit me in turn to recommend to you that before you undertake to prosecute another campaign you examine the orders of your superiors with more attention than usual. .... Indeed, sir, we had expected that your presence at the head of an overwhelming force would have afforded complete protection to our bleeding and distressed frontier, but our prospect was only delusive, for it would seem that the laurels expected in Florida was the object that accelerated your march far more than the protection of the 'ignorant Georgians.'" Andrew Jackson MSS., Congressional Library.
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put him on his trial for the murder of Stokes and his fam- ily, and hung him for the deed." 1
Thus terminated the Seminole war, insignificant and trivial in the forces involved and the actual military operations. On the American side there were engaged about eighteen hundred whites and fifteen hundred friendly In- dians. The hostile Indians numbered not more than about one thousand, of whom not over one half were at any one time before Jackson. What fighting there was, was largely done by the allied Indians. They lost twenty men, the whites lost one man and the hostile Indians sixty. Yet this petty Indian campaign was one of the most preg- nant and important events in our national history.
The Seminole war was soon made the subject of a congressional investigation. In both the house and the senate the question was submitted to committees. That of the house presented two reports. The majority report con- demned the proceedings of the trial and execution of Ar- buthnot and Ambrister. The minority report declared that where there was much in the conduct of the campaign to praise, there was little to censure and when the incalculable benefits resulting to the nation were considered it was their sense that Jackson and his officers deserved the thanks of the nation.
In due time the report of the majority was taken up in the committee of the whole and the resolution "That the house of representatives of the United States disapproves the proceedings in the trial and execution of Alexander Arbuth- not and Robert Ambrister" was debated. William C. Cobb of Georgia opened the discussion. He could conceive of no law, martial, municipal, or national, that had been violated by the luckless Englishmen. Martial law subjected spies to the death penalty. But although these men, or one of
1. For this remarkable statement see Jackson's letter to George W. Campbell, then minister to Russia, Parton's Jackson, Vol. II, p. 500.
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them, was accused of this, he was acquitted of the charge. Admitting the truth of the charges for which they were exe- cuted, yet they were not declared penal in any of the rules of war, neither were they declared to be the subject matters for trial before a court-martial. The evidence of papers not produced or accounted for, the belief of persons whose testimony of undoubted facts ought to have been suspected, hearsay, and that of Indians, negroes, and criminals who, had they been present, could not have been sworn, were all in- discriminately admitted and acted upon.
Did not the reconsideration of the sentence in Am- brister's case render null and void the first decree of the court? Can it be said that there was any other sentence than the one last passed in the case? The whole proceeding on its very face manifested a cruelty that must excite the greatest disapprobation of all impartial men. In his official orders Jackson had justified the execution of Am- brister in these words - "It is an established principle of the law of nations that any individual of a nation making war against the citizens of another nation, they being at peace, forfeits his allegiance, and becomes an outlaw and a pirate." No one had ever heard or dreamed of such a rule of international law. Reason, propriety, justice, and humanity all cry aloud against such a principle. If Jack- son's statement stood unchallenged, LaFayette, De Kalb, Pulaski, Steuben, and the large host of foreigners who joined the standard of our fathers in the revolution, and with their life's blood baptized the infant nation, were "out- laws and pirates," and had they been captured were subject to trial by court-martial and sentence to an ignominious death.
Jackson had usurped the power of congress to de- clare war. International law permits us to cross the lines in fresh pursuit of the enemy, but does not sanction razing forts, conducting sieges, receiving capitulations, mounting bat- 17
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teries, and granting terms of surrender to such places. The reasons for invading Florida were many of them ridiculous and such as, to say the most, are but causes of war. They may contain wrongs which demand redress but that through diplomatic channels, and not by any such methods as those employed by Jackson. A certain mystery appeared on the face of the documents which, Cobb declared, quite staggered him. The perfect confidence shown by Jackson in the cor- rectness of his proceedings, in which he had clearly violated what appeared to be his orders, seemed quite unaccountable and suggested something ulterior. Jackson did not attempt to excuse himself, did not seem to think he had overleaped his orders, and had neither apprehension nor fear as to the opinion that the executive might form of his proceedings. Did it not seem a suspicious circumstance that General Jackson had not been called to account for thus transcending his orders? Let it be admitted that Spain was too weak and had forfeited her right of sovereignty, yet to whom had it been forfeited and why to the United States rather than to some other nation? Cobb took the occasion to declare that he was personally hostile to Spain and felt that that na- tion had done us many wrongs, but that his feelings upon that subject could not render him callous to the stain which Jackson had inflicted on our national honor.
Let it be granted that a nation had broken a treaty, as we insisted Spain had done, is it usual for the commanding general to go in and inaugurate a war? Moreover Vattel, in his "Law of Nations," declares that a nation's breach of a treaty may be excused by the other nation especially, as in this case, when it proceeds from weakness. There existed no proofs of a warlike association between the Spanish and the Indians which would identify them as equally our ene- mies according to. the definition given of this compact by international law. Had we been dealing with Great Britain instead of Spain, a virile instead of a weak nation, would
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we have proceeded in this manner? Was Jackson's declara- tion that "St. Marks was necessary as a depot for the suc- cess of his future operations," in any sense a justification ? Gibraltar might be the same if we contemplated an attack on the Barbary States. His feelings and dignity having been injured by the "insulting letter of the governor of Pensacola," Jackson "hesitated no longer and exposed the nation to war." "But sir," concluded Cobb, "I have done with this disagreeable subject - I turn with disgust from this nauseous scene."
In the course of his speech Cobb introduced three amendments; one instructed the committee on military affairs to report a bill forbidding the execution of any captive of the army of the United States in time of peace, or in time of war with any Indian tribe unless the president approved. Another declared that the house of representa- tives disapproved of the seizure of St. Marks, Pensacola, and the Barrancas, as contrary to orders and the con- stitution. The third instructed the proper committee to frame a bill prohibiting United States troops marching into foreign territory unless ordered to do so by congress, or when in hot pursuit of an enemy beaten and flying for refuge across the border.
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