USA > Florida > The purchase of Florida; its history and diplomacy > Part 27
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The connection between Arbuthnot and Nicholls and between Ambrister, Woodbine and MacGregor is established beyond all question by the evidence produced at the trials before the court- martial. I have already remarked to you on the very extraor- dinary circumstance that a British trader from beyond the sea should be permitted by the Spanish authorities to trade with the Indians of Florida. From his letter to Hambly dated May 3, 1817, it appears that his trading was but a pretence and that his principal purpose was to act as the agent of the Indians of Florida and outlaws from the Creeks to obtain the aid of the British government in their hostilities against the United States. He expressly tells Hambly there that the chiefs of those outlaws was the principal cause of his (Arbuthnot) being in the country; and that he had come with an answer from Earl Bathurst, de-
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livered to him by Governor Cameron of New Providence, to certain Indian talks in which this aid of the British government had been solicited. Hambly himself had been left by Nicholls as the agent between the Indians and the British government; but having found that Nicholls had failed in his attempt to pre- vail upon the British government to pursue this clandestine war in the midst of peace, and that they were not prepared to support his pretence that half a dozen outlawed fugitives from the Creeks were the Creek Nation; when Arbuthnot the incendiary came and was instigating them by promises of support from Great Britain to commence their murderous incursions into the United States, Hambly at the request of the chiefs of the Creeks them- selves, wrote to him, warning him to withdraw from among that band of outlaws and giving him a solemn foreboding of the doom that awaited him from the hand of justice, if he persevered in the course that he pursued. Arbuthnot nevertheless persisted; and while he was deluding the wretched Indians with the promise of support from England he was writing letters from them to the British minister in the United States, to Governor Cameron of New Providence, to Colonel Nicholls to be laid before the British government and even to the Spanish governor of St. Augustine and the governor general of the Havanna, soliciting in all quarters aid and support, arms and ammunition for the Indians against the United States, bewailing the destruction of the Negro Fort, and charging the British government with having drawn the Indians into war with the United States and deserting them after the peace.
You will remark among the papers produced on his trial a power of attorney, dated June 17, 1817, given him by twelve Indians, partly of Florida and partly of the fugitive outlaws from the United States. He states that this power and his instruc- tions were to memorialize the British government and the gov. ernor general of the Havanna. These papers are not only sub- stantially proved as his handwriting on the trial, but in the daily newspapers of London of the 24th and 25th of August, his letter to Nicholls is published (somewhat curiously garbled) with a copy of Hambly's above mentioned letter to him and a reference to this Indian power of attorney to him aproved by the commandant of St. Marks, F. C. Luengo. Another of the papers is a letter written in the name of the same chiefs by Arbuthnot to the governor general of the Havanna asking of him permission for Arbuthnot to establish a warehouse on the
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Appalachicola; bitterly and' falsely complaining that the Ameri- cans had made settlements on their lands within the Spanish lines, and calling upon the governor general to give orders to displace them and send them back to their own country. In this letter they assign as a reason for asking the license for Arbuthnot their want of a person to put in writing for them their talks of grievances against the Americans; and they add "the com- mander of the fort of St. Marks has heard of all our talks and complaints. He approves of what we have done and what we are doing and it is by his recommendation we have thus pre- sumed to address your excellency." You will find these papers in the printed newspapers enclosed and in the proceedings of the court-martial and will point them out to the Spanish gov- ernment, not only as decisive proof of the unexampled compliance of the Spanish officers in Florida to foreign intrusive agents and instigators of Indian hostilities against the United States, but as placing beyond a doubt that participation of this hostile spirit in the commandant of St. Marks, which General Jackson so justly complains of and of which we have so well founded a right to demand the punishment. Here is the commandant of the Spanish fort, bound by the sacred engagement of a treaty to restrain by force the Indians within his command from com- mitting hostilities against the United States, conspiring with those same Indians and deliberately giving his written appro- bation to their appointment of a foreigner, a British subject, as their agent to solicit assistance and supplies from the governor general of the Havanna and from the British government for carrying on those same hostilities.
Let us come to the case of Ambrister. He was taken in arms, leading and commanding the Indians in the war against the American troops; and to that charge upon his trial pleaded guilty. But the primary object of his coming there was still more hostile to Spain than to the United States. You find that he told three of the witnesses who testified at his trial that he had come to this country upon Mr. Woodbine's business at Tampa Bay, to see the negroes righted, and one of them that he had a commission in the patriot army under MacGregor, and that he expected a captaincy. And what was the intended business of MacGregor and Woodbine at Tampa Bay? It was the conquest of Florida from Spain by the use of those very Indians and negroes whom the commandant of St. Marks was so ready to aid and support in war against the United States. The chain of
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proof that establishes this fact is contained in the documents communicated by the president to congress at their last session- relating to the occupation of Amelia Island by MacGregor. From these documents you will find that while MacGregor was there Woodbine went from New Providence in a schooner of his own to join him; that he arrived at Amelia Island just as MacGregor, abandoning the companions of his achievement there, was leav- ing it; that MacGregor, quitting the vessel in which he had embarked at Amelia, went on board that of Woodbine and re- turned with him to New Providence; that Woodbine had per- suaded him they could yet accomplish the conquest of Florida with soldiers to be recruited at Nassau, from the corps of col- onial marines which had served under Nicholls during the late war with the United States, which corps had been lately disbanded, and with negroes to be found at Tampa Bay, and 1,500 Indians already then engaged to Woodbine, who pretended that they had made a grant of all their lands to him. Among the papers, the originals of which are in our possession, are, in MacGregor's own handwriting, instructions for sailing into Tampa Bay, with the assertion that he calculated to be there by the last of April or first of May of the present year; a letter, dated December 27 last, to one of his acquaintances in this country which was to have been issued at Tampa Bay, to the inhabitants of Florida, by the person charged with making the settlement there, before his arrival, announcing his approach for the purpose of liberating them from the despotism of Spain and of enabling them to form a government for themselves. He had persuaded those who would listen to him here, that his ultimate object was to sell the Floridas to the United States. There is some reason to sup- pose that he had made indirect overtures of a similar nature to the British government. This was Ambrister's business in Florida. He arrived there in March, the precursor of MacGregor and Woodbine, and immediately upon his arrival he is found seizing upon Arbuthnot's goods and distributing them among the negroes and Indians; seizing upon his vessel and compelling its master to pilot him with a body of armed negroes toward the fort of St. Marks; with the declared purpose of taking it by surprise in the night; writing letters to Governor Cameron of New Providence urgently calling for supplies of munitions of war and of cannon for the war against the Americans, and let- ters to Colonel Nicholls renewing the same demands of supplies and informing him that he is with 300 negroes, "a few of our 23
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Bluff people" who had stuck to the cause and were relying upos the faith of Nicholls's promises. "Our Bluff people" were the people of the Negro Fort, collected by Nicholls's and Woodbine's proclamations during the American and English war, and "the cause" to which they stuck was the savage, servile, exterminating war against the United States.
Among the agents and actors of such virtuous enterprises a .: are here unveiled, it was hardly to be expected that there would be found remarkable evidences of their respect, confidence, and good faith towards one another. Accordingly, besides the violent seizure and distribution by Ambrister of Arbuthnot's property, his letters to Governor Cameron and to Nicholls are filled with the distrust and suspicions of the Indians, that they were deceived and betrayed by Arbuthnot; while in Arbuthnot's letters to the same Nicholls, he accuses Woodbine of having taken charge of poor Francis the prophet, or Hillis Hadjo, upon his return from England to New Providence, and under pretence of taking care of him and his affairs, of having defrauded him of a large portion of the presents which had been delivered out from the king's stores to him for Francis's use. This is one of the passages of Arbuthnot's letter to Nicholls omitted in the publication of it last August in the London newspapers.
Is this narrative of dark and complicated depravity; this creeping and insidious war, both against Spain and the United States; this mockery of patriotism; these political philters to fugitive slaves and Indian outlaws; these perfidies and treach- eries of villains, incapable of keeping their faith even to each other; all in the name of South American liberty, of the rights of runaway negroes, and the wrongs of savage murderers; all combined and projected to plunder Spain of her provinces and to spread massacre and devastation along the border of the United States: is all this sufficient to cool the sympathies of his Catholic Majesty's government excited by the execution of these "two subjects of a power in amity with the king?" The Spanish government is not at this day to be informed that, cruel as war in its mildest forms must be, it is, and necessarily must be, doubly cruel when waged with savages; that savages make no prisoners but to torture them; that they give no quarter; that they put to death without discrimination of age or sex. That these ordinary characteristics of Indian warfare have been ap plicable in their most heart sickening horrors to that war, left us by Nicholls as his legacy, reinstigated by Woodbine, Arbuth-
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not, and Ambrister, and stimulated by the approbation, encour- agement, and aid of the Spanish commandant at St. Marks, is proof required? Entreat the Spanish minister of state for a moment to overcome the feelings which details like these must excite; and to reflect, if possible, with composure upon the facts stated in the following extracts from the documents enclosed.
Letter from sailing-master, Jairus Loomis to Commodore Daniel T. Patterson, August 13, 1816, reporting the destruction of the Negro Fort: "On examining the prisoners they stated that Edward Daniels O. S., who was made prisoner in the boat on the 17th July, was tarred and burnt alive."
Letter from Archibald Clarke to General Gaines, February 26, 1817. (Messages, Presidents to Congress, March 25, 1818, page 9): "On the 24th instant the house of Mr. Garret, residing in the upper part of this county, near the boundary of Wayne county (Georgia), was attacked during his absence near the middle of the day, by this party (of Indians) consisting of about fifteen. who shot Mrs. Garret in two places and then dispatched her by stabbing and scalping. Her two children, one about three years, the other two months, were also murdered and the eldest scalped; the house was then plundered of every article of value and set on fire."
Letter from Peter B. Cook (Arbuthnot's clerk) to Eliza Carney at Nassau, dated at Suhwahnee, January 19, 1818, giving an account of their operations with the Indians against the Americans; and their massacre of Lieutenant Scott and his party :
"There was a boat that was taken by the Indians that had in thirty men, seven women, four small children. There were six of the men got clear and one woman saved and all of the rest of them got killed. The children were took by the leg and their brains dashed out against the boat."
If the bare recital of scenes like these cannot be perused without shuddering, what must be the agonized feeling of those whose wives and children are from day to day and from night to night exposed to be the victims of the same barbarity? Has mercy a voice to plead for the perpetrators and instigators of deeds like these? Shall inquiry hereafter be made, why within three months after this event the savage Hamathli-Mico, upon being taken by the American troops, was by order of their com- mander immediately hung, let it be told that that savage was the commander of the party by which those women were butch-
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ered and those helpless infants were thus dashed against the boat!
Contending with such enemies, although humanity revolts at entire retaliation upon them and spares the lives of their feeble and defenseless women and children, yet mercy, herself, surrenders to retributive justice the lives of their leading war- riors taken in arms and still more the lives of the foreign white Incendiaries who, disowned by their own governments and dis- owning their own natures, degrade themselves beneath the sav- age character by voluntarily descending to its level. Is not this the dictate of common sense? Is it not the usage of legitimate warfare? Is it not consonant to the soundest authorities of national law? . .. "When at war (says Vattel) with a ferocious nation which observes no rules and grants no quarter they may be chastised in the persons of those of them who may be taken; they are of the number of the guilty and by this rigor the attempt may be made of bringing them to a sense of the laws of humanity." And again: "As a general has the right of sacrificing the lives of his enemies to his own safety or that of his people, if he has to contend with an inhuman enemy, often guilty of such excesses, he may take the lives of some of his prisoners, and treat them as his own people have been treated." The justification of these principles is found in their salutary efficacy for terror and example.
It is thus only that the barbarities of Indians can be suc- cessfully encountered. It is thus only that the worse than Indian barbarities of European impostors, pretending authority from their government, but always disavowed can be punished and arrested. Great Britain yet engages the alliance and co- operation of savages in war. But her government has invariably disclaimed all countenance or authorization to her subjects to instigate them against us in time of peace. Yet so it has hap- pened, that, from the period of our established independence to this day all the Indian wars with which we have been afflicted have been distinctly traceable to the instigation of English traders or agents. Always disavowed, yet always felt; more than once detected but never before punished; two of them, offenders of the deepest dye, after solemn warning to their government, and individually to one of them, have fallen, flagrante delicto. into the hands of an American general; and the punishment inflicted upon them has fixed them on high as an example, awful in its ex- hibition, but we trust auspicious in its results, of that which
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awaits unauthorized pretenders of European agency to stimulate and interpose in wars between the United States and the In- dians within their control.
This exposition of their origin, the causes and the character of the war with the Seminole Indians and part of the Creeks, combined with MacGregor's mock patriots and Nicholls's negroes which necessarily led our troops into Florida and gave rise to all those incidents of which Pizarro so vehemently complains, will, it is hoped, enable you to present other and sounder views of the subject to his Catholic Majesty's government. It will enable you to show that the occupation of Pensacola and St. Marks was occasioned neither by hostility to Spain nor with a view to extort prematurely the province from her possession; that it was rendered necessary by the neglect of Spain to per- form her engagements of restraining the Indians from hostilities against the United States and by the culpable countenance, en- couragement, and assistance given to those Indians in their hostilities by the Spanish government and commandant at those places; that the United States have a right to demand, as the president does demand, of Spain the punishment of those officers for this misconduct and he further demands of Spain a just and reasonable indemnity to the United States for the heavy and necessary expenses which they have been compelled to incur, by the failure of Spain to perform her engagement to restrain the Indians aggravated by this demonstrated complicity of her com- manding officers with them in their hostilities against the United States.
That the two Englishmen, executed by order of General Jackson, were not only identified with the savages with whom they were carrying on the war against the United States, but that one of them was the mover and fomenter of the war, which, without his interference and false promises to the Indians of support from the British government, never would have hap- pened; that the other was the instrument of war against Spain as well as the United States; commissioned by MacGregor and expedited by Woodbine, upon their project of conquering Florida with these Indians and negroes; that as accomplices of the sav- ages and sinning against their better knowledge, worse than savages, General Jackson, possessed of their persons and of the proofs of their guilt, might, by the lawful and ordinary usages of war, have hung them both without the formality of a trial; that to allow them every possible opportunity of refuting the
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proofs, or of showing any circumstances in extenuation of their crimes he gave them the benefit of trial by a court-martial of highly respectable officers; that the defense of one consisted solely and exclusively of technical cavils at the nature of part of · the evidence against him and the other confessed his guilt; finally that in restoring Pensacola and St. Marks to Spain the president gives the most signal proof of his confidence, that hereafter her engagement to restrain by force the Indians of Florida from all hostilities against the United States will be effectually fulfilled - that there will be no more murders, no more robberies within our borders by savages, prowling along the Spanish line and seeking shelter within it, to display in their villages the scalps of our women and children, their victims, and to sell with shameless effrontery the plunder from our citizens in Spanish forts and cities -- that we shall have no more apologies from Spanish governors and commandants of their inability to perform the duties of their office and the solemn contracts of their coun- try, no more excuses for compliances to the savage enemies of the United States from the dread of their attacks upon themselves, no more harboring of foreign impostors upon compulsion - that strength sufficient will be kept in the province to restrain the Indians by force and officers empowered and entrusted to employ it effectually to maintain the good faith of the nation by the effective fulfilment of the treaty.
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The duty of this government to protect the persons and property of our fellow citizens on the borders of the United States is imperative; it must be discharged; and if after all the warnings that Spain has had - if after the prostration of all her territorial rights, neutral obligations by Nicholls and his banditti during war, and all her treaty stipulations by Arbuthnot and Ambrister abetted by her own commanding officers during peace to the cruel annoyance of the United States - if the necessities of self defense should again compel the United States to take possession of the Spanish forts and places in Florida, declare with the frankness and candor that becomes us, that another unconditional restoration of them must not be expected; that even the president's confidence in the good faith and ultimate justice of the Spanish government, will yield to the painful ex- perience of continual disappointment; and that after unwearied and almost unnumbered appeals to them for the performance of their stipulated duties, in vain, the United States will be reluct- antly compelled to rely for the protection of their borders upon themselves alone. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.
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APPENDIX D.
1795.
TREATY OF FRIENDSHIP, LIMITS, AND NAVIGATION.
CONCLUDED OCTOBER 27, 1795; RATIFICATIONS EXCHANGED AT ARANJUEZ APRIL 25, 1796; PROCLAIMED AUGUST 2, 1796.
His Catholic Majesty and the United States of America, desiring to consolidate, on a permanent basis, the friendship and good correspondence which happily prevails between the two parties, have determined to establish, by a convention, several points, the settlement whereof will be productive of general ad- vantage and reciprocal utility to both nations.
With this intention, his Catholic Majesty has appointed the most excellent Lord Don Manuel de Godoy, and Alvarez de Faria, Rios, Sanchez, Zarzosa, Prince de la Paz, Duke de la Alcudia, Lord of the Soto de Roma, and of the state of Albala, Grandee of Spain of the first class, perpetual Regidor of the city of Santiago, Knight of the illustrious Order of the Golden Fleece, and Great Cross of the Royal and distinguished Spanish Order of Charles the V., Commander of Valencia del Ventoso, Rivera, and Acenchal in that of Santiago, Knight and Great Cross of the religious Order of St. John; Counsellor of State; Superintendent General of the Posts and Highways; Protector of the Royal Academy of the Noble Arts, and of the Royal Societies of Natural History, Botany, Chemistry, and Astronomy; Gentle- man of the King's Chamber in employment; Captain General of his Armies; Inspector and Major of the Royal Corps of Body Guards, &c., &c., &c., and the President of the United States, with the advice and consent of their Senate, has appointed Thomas Pinckney, a citizen of the United States, and their Envoy Extraordinary to His Catholic Majesty. And the said Plenipotentiaries have agreed upon and concluded the following articles:
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ARTICLE 1.
There shall be a firm and inviolable peace and sincere friend- ship between His Catholic Majesty, his successors and subjects, and the United States and their citizens, without exception of persons or places.
ARTICLE 2.
To prevent all disputes on the subject of the boundaries which separate the territories of the two high contracting parties, it is hereby declared and agreed as follows, to-wit: The southern boundary of the United States, which divides their territory from the Spanish colonies of East and West Florida, shall be designated by a line beginning on the river Mississippi, at the northernmost part of the thirty-first degree of latitude north of the equator, which from thence shall be drawn due east to the middle of the river Appalachicola, or Catachouche, thence along the middle thereof to its junction with the Flint; thence straight to the head of St. Mary's River, and thence down the middle thereof to the Atlantic Ocean. And it is agreed that if there should be any troops, garrisons, or settlements of either party in the territory of the other, according to the above mentioned boundaries, they shall be withdrawn from the said territory within the term of six months after the ratification of this treaty, or sooner if it be possible; and that they shall be per- mitted to take with them all the goods and effects which they possess.
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