The “Federal Republican” of Baltimore published, January 5, the day when the Hartford Convention adjourned, a letter from Washington announcing “an explosion at hand; that the President would be called on to resign; and there must be peace by that or a future Administration.” The fall of New Orleans was to be the signal for a general demand that Madison should resign, and the Federalist press already prepared the ground by insisting that “Mr. Madison has scarcely raised his little finger to preserve New Orleans,” and would finally determine to abandon the State of Louisiana.[437] That Madison’s authority could survive two such blows as the capture of Washington and the loss of Louisiana seemed improbable; but that he should resign was impossible, though the alternative was a collapse of government. When the month of February arrived, government and people were waiting with keen apprehension for some new disaster, and the least probable solution was that England knowing the situation would consent to any tolerable peace. The “Federal Republican” of January 28, commenting on the expected bank veto, summed up the consequences, not unfairly from its point of view, in few words:-- “It is impossible, as Mr. Giles said in his luminous and eloquent argument upon the measure [of a national bank], that the government can stand these reiterated shocks.... The interest upon the public debt remains unpaid, and there exists not the means, without making the most ruinous sacrifices, to pay it. The government is in arrears to the army upward of nine million dollars; to the navy, about four millions.... The condition of our finances is known to the enemy; and is it possible he will be such a fool as to give us peace, after the mortal blow we aimed at him, when he knows we cannot pay the interest on the public debt, that we cannot pay our army or our navy, and when he finds us unable to defend any part of the country at which he strikes?” [Illustration: A GENERAL MAP OF THE SEAT OF WAR IN LOUISIANA AND WEST FLORIDA, _Shewing all the fortified points and encampments of both the American and British Armies; also the march of Gen. Jackson’s Army on his expedition against Pensacola._ BY MAJOR A. LACARRIERE LATOUR. STRUTHERS & CO., ENGR’S, N. Y.] CHAPTER XII.