"'Yes, of course, Jackson replied, but the minutes of the conference at Ghent, as kept by Mr. Gallatin, represent the British commissioners as declaring in exact words: "We do not admit Bonaparte's construction of the law of nations; we can not accept it in relation to any subject-matter before us." "'At that moment, pursued General Jackson, none of our commissioners knew what the real meaning of those words was. When they were uttered the British commissioners knew that Pakenham's expedition had been decided on; our commissioners did not know it. Now, since I have been Chief Magistrate, I have learned, from diplomatic sources of the most unquestionable authority, that the British ministry did not intend the Treaty of Ghent to apply to the Louisiana Purchase at all. The whole corporation of them,--Pitt, the Duke of Portland, Grenville, Perceval, Lord Liverpool, and Castlereagh, denied in toto the legal right of Napoleon to sell Louisiana to us. They held, therefore, that we had no right to that Territory. So you see, Allen, that the words of Mr. Gouldburn, on behalf of the British commissioners, which I have quoted to you from Albert Gallatin's minutes of the conference, had a far deeper significance than our commissioners could penetrate. These words were meant to lay the foundation for a claim on the Louisiana Purchase, entirely external to the provisions of the Treaty of Ghent. And in that way, the British government was signing a treaty with one hand in front, whilst the other hand, behind its back, was dispatching Pakenham's army to seize the fairest of our possessions. "'You can also see, my dear Allen, said the old General, waxing warmer, you can also see what an awful mess such a situation would have been, if the British programme had been carried out in full. But Providence willed otherwise. All the tangled web that the cunning of English diplomacy could weave around our unsuspecting commissioners at Ghent was torn to pieces, and soaked with British blood, in half an hour, at New Orleans, by the never-missing rifles of my Tennessee and Kentucky pioneers; and that ended it. British diplomacy could do wonders; but it could not provide against such a contingency as that. Now, Allen, you have the whole story; and know why Arkansas was saved to the Union.'" JUST LIKE JACKSON.