Jackson, Andrew, 1767-1845; Presidents -- United States -- Biography
Even in his farewell to his troops, Jackson took occasion to attack a
policy recently favored by his superior, General Jacob Brown, and any
one who knew Jackson might have guessed that the holding of a civil
office would never keep him from violent courses, particularly in
Pensacola. He held the office only a few months, for he was in wretched
health. His wife, who was with him, tells in one of her letters how pale
and solemn he was when he rode into Pensacola for the third time, and
how ill he was while he was there. He resigned in October, but before he
resigned he had made another cause of dispute with Spain. The retiring
Spanish governor, Callava, was accused of attempting to carry away
papers which were necessary to establish the property rights of a
quadroon family. The correspondence on the subject led to a series of
misunderstandings, and General Jackson was soon convinced that villainy
was afoot. The upshot of the dispute was that the American governor put
the Spanish governor in jail; and when the United States judge of West
Florida, a curious character named Fromentin, tried to mend the matter
with a writ of habeas corpus, he fared little better than Judge Hall of
New Orleans had fared before him.
Mr. Parton's laborious investigation of this comical affair enables him
to show that the estate over which the trouble arose was of no value
whatever, and that Jackson's chivalrous impulse to defend a family he
thought wronged led him into a very arbitrary and indefensible action.
As usual, his motives were good, but his temper was not improved by his
illness or by the fact that Callava, who seems to have been a worthy
gentleman, was a Spaniard, and had been governor of Florida. Jackson had
a rooted dislike of Spanish governors, and doubtless congratulated
himself and the country that there would be no more of them in Florida,
when, for the last time, he turned northward from Pensacola to seek The
Hermitage and the rest which his diseased body sorely needed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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