Events were now evidently approaching a crisis; and the anxiety and interest deepened daily and hourly. To add to the weight which already pressed the heart of Jackson, he was told that the legislature had become frightened, and was discussing the propriety of surrendering the city. He immediately sent a dispatch to Governor Clairborne, ordering him to watch its proceedings, and the moment such a project should be fairly formed, to place a guard at the door of the chamber, and shut the members in. In his zeal and warm-hearted patriotism, or through misconception of the order, the governor, making sure work of it, turned the whole of them _out_ of doors. Just before the execution of this high-handed measure, a committee of the legislature waited on Jackson, to inquire what he designed to do if compelled to abandon his position. "If," he replied, "I thought the hair of my head could divine what I should do, I would cut it off forthwith. Go back with this answer: say to your honorable body that if disaster does overtake me, and the fate of war drives me from my line to the city, _that they may expect to have a warm session_." To one who asked him afterwards what he would have done in such an emergency, he said, "I would have retreated to the city, _fired it_, and _fought the enemy amid the surrounding flames_." A more heroic speech never fell from the lips of a commander. New Orleans in flames and Jackson charging down its blazing streets, would have been one of the most frightful exhibitions furnished in the annals of the war. [Sidenote: Jan. 1, 1815.]