Such was the military situation in the first month of autumn, 1814. Seemingly, the British plenipotentiaries had a motive in reserve for delaying the negotiations for peace. England yet looked upon the United States as her wayward prodigal, and conjured many grievances against the young nation that had rebuked her cruel insolence and pride in two wars. She nursed a spirit of imperious and bitter revenge. A London organ, recently before, had said: "In diplomatic circles it is rumored that our military and naval commanders in America have no power to conclude any armistice or suspension of arms. Terms will be offered to the American Government at the point of the bayonet. America will be left in a much worse situation as a commercial and naval power than she was at the commencement of the war." [Illustration: SEAT OF WAR. LOUISIANA & FLORIDA] The reverses to the British arms on Lake Champlain, at Plattsburg, and at Baltimore, virtually ended hostilities in the Northern States for the remaining period of the war. Winter approaching, all belligerent forces that could be marshaled would be transferred to the waters of the Gulf for operations on the coast there. The malice and wanton barbarity of the English in burning the national buildings and property at Washington, in the destruction and loot of houses, private and public, on the shores of the Chesapeake and Atlantic, and in repeated military outrages unjustified by the laws of civilized warfare, had fully aroused the Government and the citizenship to the adoption of adequate measures of defense for the Northern and Eastern States. It was too late, however, to altogether repair the injuries done to the army of the Southwest by the tardiness and default of the head of the War Department, which, as General Jackson said in an official report, threatened defeat and disaster to his command at New Orleans. Indignant public sentiment laid the blame of the capture of Washington, and of the humiliating disasters there, to the same negligence and default of this official, which led to his resignation soon after. GENERAL JACKSON ASSUMES COMMAND OF THE SEVENTH MILITARY DISTRICT OF THE SOUTHWEST.