Let us briefly go back and bring events from our last paper—Jackson in the wilderness of Alabama, victor of an Indian war, remover of the strong allies of the Spaniard and British—the red, menacing, butchering wedge that was thrust in between the two parts of the young Republic. It really deserves a chapter itself, and that chapter might well be headed, “What Jackson Did to the Spanish.” Briefly, it is this: Jackson, having finished the Indian War, marched, May, 1814, homeward, amid the plaudits of the pioneer West, disbanding his army at Fayetteville, Tennessee, and receiving an ovation and banquet in Nashville. He is appointed by the President Major General in the United States Army, and later, by his influence and the great fear and respect the Indians had for him, he closed a treaty with them at Fort Jackson, and the Southern territory to Florida (which belonged to Spain), became the Republic’s. And now, Jackson was free to turn on the treacherous and double-dealing Spaniard, who had secretly helped Britain in the Indian War, and, even then, contrary to her sworn neutrality, was housing and feeding British troops at Pensacola and other portions of her territory, and permitting them, five thousand strong, to rendezvous in Pensacola preparing for the expedition which they knew was already on the high seas bound for New Orleans. As stated in our last paper, these were the darkest days of the Republic. Only Jackson could have saved it. He alone was the cog that fitted squarely into the wheel of things. Jackson struck squarely out from the shoulder at the Spanish. He violated our treaty with Spain openly when he marched on Pensacola, for to his straight soul he saw more honor in doing a thing openly and aboveboard than in doing it treacherously and slyly, as Spain had done all along. If he had not whipped the British at New Orleans, we would have had a war with Spain on our hands. He had to act quickly. The British had come and were coming faster. By August, 1814, the sleepy town of Pensacola had awakened to new life—and the life was red—red English. Eight or ten English battleships lay in her harbor; regiments of negro soldiers from the West Indies went ashore, with other British, soldiers, all drilling daily. The English were repairing the forts, and their commander and the Spanish governor slept under the same roof. [Illustration: “Its great banks already overtop the spot where Jackson stood.”] There were rumors of a great force coming, but no one knew where it would strike. Jackson learned it first from the Pirate Jean La Fitte, and that pirate’s story and the gallant fight his crew made handling a battery of guns at New Orleans is a story in itself.