Taking four thousand one hundred men,[472] without trains, Jackson marched November 3 against Pensacola, which he occupied, November 7, with little resistance, although “Spanish treachery,” he said,[473] “kept us out of possession of the fort until nearly twelve o’clock at night.” The next morning the British blew up Fort Barrancas, six miles below, where they had established themselves, and Colonel Nicholls sailed away no farther than the Appalachicola River, leaving Jackson to do what he pleased with Pensacola, a position of no value to either party. Even Armstrong, who favored Jackson against what he thought the ill-will of Madison and Monroe, afterward condemned the movement against Pensacola. “The general’s attack and capture of the town on the 7th of November, 1814, was to say the least of it decidedly ill-judged, involving at once an offence to a neutral power, and a probable misapplication of both time and force as regarded the defence of New Orleans.”[474] Jackson remained only two days at the place, and then returned to Mobile, where he arrived November 11 and remained until November 22, as though still in doubt. He detached Major Blue of the Thirty-ninth United States Infantry, with a thousand mounted men, to the Appalachicola to break up the depot established there for supplying assistance to the Red Stick Indians.[475] Nothing indicated that he felt anxiety for the safety of New Orleans, although the British expedition, comprising some fifty vessels, was then at Jamaica, and November 26 actually sailed for the Mississippi.[476] Jackson’s conduct greatly alarmed the President and the Secretary of War. When the despatches arrived at Washington announcing what was taking place at Mobile and Pensacola, Monroe hastened to order General Gaines to Mobile. He wrote to Jackson, December 7,[477]-- “General Gaines is ordered to join you and act under you in the defence of New Orleans and of the district under your command. Full confidence is entertained that this appointment of an officer of his merit will afford to you a very acceptable aid in the discharge of your highly important duties.... Much anxiety is felt lest you should remain too long on the Mobile. The city [New Orleans], it is presumed, is the principal object of the enemy, and it cannot be defended on either of the passes by which it may be approached,--one by the river Mississippi itself, another by the Fourche, the third by Lake Pontchartrain,--without occupying the ground bearing on these passes.” Three days afterward, December 10, Monroe wrote again in stronger terms:[478]-- “It is hoped that you will have long since taken a suitable position on the river to afford complete protection to that city. Mobile is a comparatively trifling object with the British government. Your presence at such a point on the river with the main body of your troops will be of vital importance.”