Jackson, 'tis true, retaliated severely; but his vengeance fell on the warriors alone; no woman or child was touched; and had he ordered otherwise, no American militia man could have been found to execute his commands.

When General Packenham led the flower of the British army against New-Orleans, as to a certain conquest; a place without walls, troops, or cannon, Jackson was sent there. He found a few militia, hastily collected; more were expected. In the scattered state of population, some had to come above a thousand miles. These were mostly volunteers, without skill or tactics, unable to form or to march by rule; but marksmen, whose aim was almost a fatal certainty. In this situation, which called for the most prompt decision, and when it was more than suspected, that there were persons in the city deeply in the British interest, Jackson did the only thing which could have saved the place; he seized the power of the bench, and placed the town under military law. At this moment the advance of the British army was landing, accompanied by custom-house and police officers, already arranged to organize a government of the place, in the good old way to which they had been accustomed in their warfare with other enemies.

Without giving them time to pitch their tents, Jackson attacked them at night with the few troops he had. Our officers were surprised by such a reception, at a place where they had expected no

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resistance, and they halted till the rest of our troops joined them; by which time numbers of the militia had arrived. The cotton bags were taken from the warehouses, and placed round the town as a rampart. How this would have been ridiculed by a Cohorn or a Vauban! and probably it was equally ridiculed by our officers, accustomed to the entrenchments on the European continent. They led on their troops with the valour of British officers, under a heavy cannonade, and with clouds of rockets.

Who could believe that the result should be, the defeat of our troops, with the loss of nearly three thousand men killed, wounded, and prisoners; and that the raw militia, behind the ramparts of cotton bags, should have only thirteen men killed and wounded! Yet so it appears to have been. Our troops retreated to the swamps, by which NewOrleans is surrounded, where they had another enemy to encounter, the diseases attendant on such a situation. When they were gone, Jackson restored to the judges their suspended power, (cedunt arma toga), and was called before them and fined for suspending it. Before he could leave the court house, the grateful citizens had paid the fine for their deliverer. He has been again lately called into activity. The Indians on the Florida frontier had begun their massacres. Jackson marched against them; they fled into the Spanish province; he followed them there; he found them protected;

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he did not hesitate, but attacked and captured the Spanish forts, and sent the governor and garrison off in transports, which he hired to receive them. At the same time he told the governor that when the king of Spain should send a sufficient force to quell the Indians and keep them in subjection, the province should be restored to him.

Fortunately our situation is far removed from Indian, or any other warfare. I have been led into a long digression in showing that a peaceful citizen may at the same time be a good soldier. It has been observed by Talleyrand, that there was a natural connexion between England and America, which must operate in favour of the former, and against France. This I believe to be strictly the case; and wars between Great Britain and America can only arise, from an astonishing ignorance in the British ministry, of the feelings and habits of this country. The more I see of America, the more I am convinced, that instead of an absurd jealousy of the growing power of this country, we ought rather to promote it. It has been very correctly observed, by one of our statesmen, "that not an axe falls in an American forest which does not put in motion some shuttle, hammer, or wheel, in England" This is truly the case. The amount of British manufactures consumed even in this place, so lately established, is wonderful. In the village of Montrose are already six or eight shopkeepers. One of these lately sent off nine wagons to bring in

goods from one of the maritime cities: and these goods are principally of British manufacture, and to be consumed by back-woods-men! It is usual for the store-keepers to supply themselves twice a year, spring and autumn; therefore, it is probable that this storekeeper sells eighteen loads of goods in a year. Multiply eighteen by six, and you have one hundred and eight loads of goods sold in the village of Montrose alone; besides shops in other parts of the country. Instead of prohibiting the emigration of farmers and mechanics to this country, an enlightened ministry would urge it. A man who for want of employment with you, is a burthen to the parish, here purchases a lot of new lands; his labour supplies his family with food and raiment, and the latter is principally British manufacture. As his children increase, his wealth increases, and his demand on the shops, or, as they are here called, stores, increases with it. These stores are supplied from Great Britain with the articles he consumes. The result is obvious; the man who is a weight on his fellow subjects at home, when abroad, becomes one of those who enhance the prosperity of his native country, by the consumption of its manufactures. These things are too plain to be mistaken; and a British minister must shut both his eyes and his ears, who does not perceive that the increase of population here, is of the utmost importance to the interest of the mother country. The concourse of idle and expensive pau

pers in England, if sent to this country, would become a fountain of wealth, pouring its fertilizing stream on you from a lavish urn. It is mortifying to know, that these sources of prosperity should have been prevented from flowing upon our country by the sneering letters of Canning, or the unbending pride of Castlereagh, and a host of others of the same character.

When the French decrees denationalized the vessels of America, for suffering the search of a British cruiser, what a fortunate time it would have been for our country, had our minister been sufficiently wise to have seen that his true policy should have led him to protect and guard the American vessel; to do every act of kindness, and to afford every protection in his power, while our enemy was absurdly provoking the hostility of the nation, whose agriculture was at the very moment affording him the most important aid. What would have been the result of such conduct? Undoubtedly a war between France and America; and a league between the latter and Great Britain; between the parent and the child, as it ought to have been. In monarchical governments, if an injury is done by one to another, a calculation may be made coolly and deliberately, of the sum necessary to quiet all animosity. This is not the case in a government of the people. Here their voice is heard; it is all powerful; and if such a case had happened, as I have supposed, the people would have compelled the