With the exception of this proclamation and another[461] of the same date to the free negroes of Louisiana, Jackson paid no attention to the defence of New Orleans, but left it entirely to Governor Claiborne. He disregarded a memorial from the citizens, dated September 18, urging his personal attention and presence. “My whole force would not satisfy the demands they make,” he wrote to the War Department, October 10.[462] “As soon as security is given to this section of my district, which is first indispensably necessary, I shall hasten to New Orleans,” he wrote from Mobile, October 14.[463] He entertained no doubt that at Mobile he stood between the British and their object. “Unless Pensacola were reduced,” said his confidential biographer[464] ten years afterward, “it was vain to think of defending the country.... The attack on Mobile Point was a confirmation of his previous conjectures as to the views of the enemy.” The Government at Washington became alarmed. While Jackson waited at Mobile for the arrival of General Coffee with his Tennesseeans to attack Pensacola, Monroe at Washington received warnings from Europe, Halifax, and Bermuda that the British force which had just laid Washington in ashes was but a division of a larger army on its way to attack New Orleans. He wrote to Jackson, September 25,[465]-- “There is great cause to believe that the enemy have set on foot an expedition against Louisiana, through the Mobile, in the expectation that while so strong a pressure was made from Canada and in this quarter, whereby the force of the country and attention of the government would be much engaged, a favorable opportunity would be afforded them to take possession of the lower part of that State, and of all the country along the Mobile.” The President, he continued, had ordered five thousand additional troops from Tennessee to march to Jackson’s aid, and had directed the governor of Georgia to hold twenty-five hundred more subject to Jackson’s orders. He had also sent one hundred thousand dollars in Treasury notes to Governor Blount of Tennessee, to be applied to the necessary expenses of the campaign, and Jackson could draw on him for the necessary funds. The orders to the governor of Tennessee were sent the same day, September 25. A week later, October 3, Monroe wrote to Governor Shelby of Kentucky, requesting him to send twenty-five hundred men to Jackson. Again, October 10, Monroe wrote to Jackson, informing him that not less than twelve thousand five hundred men were already subject to his orders, from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia: