John Quincy Adams: Diary Entries on the Seminole Campaign

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[May] 4th. The President sent me word this morning that he had returned from his short tour to Virginia. When I called at his house, I found there Mr. Calhoun and Mr. Crowninshield; Mr. Crawford came in shortly afterwards. The dispatches from General Jackson were just received, containing the account of his progress in the war against the Seminole Indians, and his having taken the Spanish fort of St. Mark’s, in Florida, where they had taken refuge. They hung some of the Indian prisoners, as it appears, without due regard to humanity. A Scotchman by the name of Arbuthnot was found among them, and Jackson appears half inclined to take his life. Crawford some time ago proposed to send Jackson an order to give no quarter to any white man found with the Indians. I objected to it then, and this day avowed that I was not prepared for such a mode of warfare.

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13th. At eleven o’clock I attended the Cabinet meeting at the President’s. He proposed several questions for consideration.

1. Whether Amelia Island should, with or without a new application from the Spanish Minister, be evacuated?

2. Whether, if the war with the Seminole Indians should come to an end by their surrender, our troops shall evacuate Florida?

3. Whether an armed force shall be sent to visit both sides of the coast of South America for the protection of our commerce, and to countenance the patriots? to which was added the further question, whether a frigate should also be sent into the India Seas?

4. Whether a person of confidence should be sent to Galveston to ascertain by what authority the late settlement there has been made, and to give warning that it is the territory of the United States?

5. Whether the Ministers of the United States in Europe shall be instructed that the United States will not join in any project of interposition between Spain and the South Americans which should not be to promote the complete independence of those Provinces; and whether measures shall be taken to ascertain if this be the policy of the British Government, and, if so, to establish a concert with them for the support of this policy?

6. Whether any measures shall be taken with regard to the renewal of the commercial Convention of 3d July, 1815, with Great Britain?

All these points were discussed without much diversity of opinion upon any of them. It was agreed that neither Amelia Island nor Florida should be evacuated for the present. As to sending an agent to Galveston, nothing definitive was determined. There were incidental questions with regard to the kind of agent to be sent, whether ostensible or secret, and from which of the Departments. No positive decision was made. …

June 9th. We spent the evening at the French Minister Hyde de Neuville’s—a small musical party. Mr. Bagot spoke to me of certain publications in the newspapers, mentioning the execution by sentences of court-martial, under the orders of General Jackson, of two Englishmen, named Arbuthnot and Ambrister, taken with the Seminole Indians in this war. These publications say that the evidence against them proved the greatest perfidy on the part of the British Government. Mr. Bagot was very much hurt by this charge of perfidy, for which he said there was not the slightest foundation.

I told him that I had seen none of General Jackson’s dispatches giving an account of these transactions; that I knew not from whom, or whence, the newspaper publication came; that I was very sorry that any white men, and especially Englishmen, had been found with these Seminoles; that I did not know how long the British Government had continued, or when they had closed their connection with the Seminoles, formed by Colonel Nicholls during the late war, but Nicholls had made what he called a treaty offensive and defensive with them after the peace ; that I had by orders from this Government remonstrated against it, both verbally and in writing, to Lord Bathurst and Lord Castlereagh, who had verbally disavowed Nicholls’s treaty, but never in writing, which I had much regretted. He renewed the assurance that the charge of perfidy against his Government was entirely without foundation.

18th. The President spoke of the taking of Pensacola by General Jackson, contrary to his orders, and, as it is now reported, by storm. This, and other events in this Indian war, makes many difficulties for the Administration.

[July] 8th. I received a note from Mr. Hyde de Neuville, the French Minister, asking an interview this morning upon an affair of importance, and requesting if I should go late to my office, to see him previously, at my house. I answered his note, and appointed eleven o’clock to see him at my house. He came at the time, and had an hour’s conversation with me on the subject of the taking of Pensacola. He began by taking up the subject in a very grave tone, shaking his head and saying it was a very disagreeable affair, but he was convinced it had been an act of General Jackson’s to which he was not authorized by his instructions. He had not yet seen Mr. Onis, but was going to see him immediately, and he wished to know if he might tell him that Jackson had no instructions to take Pensacola.

Perceiving what he was aiming at, I said that the dispatches from General Jackson had been received yesterday and immediately forwarded to the President; that I could say nothing official until I should receive his instructions, but I advised , him (De Neuville) not to say one word to Onis which should lead him to expect that Jackson’s proceedings would be disavowed by the President, for my private opinion was that the President would approve them, and I entered at large upon the grounds of justification for them. His fervor was quite cooled down before he left me, and he appeared convinced that, however we deprecate war as an evil, we are not to be frightened with it as a bugbear. I went to the office and sent word to Mr. Onis that I would see him at two o’clock, when he came. I had a similar scene to go through with him as with De Neuville, but with less success. He left me with a new note on the affair of Pensacola, which he requested me to answer, and told me at the same time that he had received new instructions from Spain, which would have enabled him to conclude a treaty with me satisfactory to both parties if it had not been for this unfortunate incident, and asked if I had transmitted instructions to Mr. Erving by which he could conclude with Mr. Pizarro.

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10th. Had an interview at the office with Hyde de Neuville, the French Minister—all upon our affairs with Spain. He says that Spain will cede the Floridas to the United States, and let the lands go for the indemnities due to our citizens, and he urged that we should take the Sabine for the western boundary, which I told him was impossible. He urged this subject very strenuously for more than an hour. As to Onis’s note of invective against General Jackson, which I told him as a good friend to Onis he should advise him to take back, he said I need not answer it for a month or two, perhaps not at all, if in the mean time we could come to an arrangement of the other differences.

11th. Mr. Onis, the Spanish Minister, called on me at my house to talk of the negotiation. He was more tractable upon the subject of Pensacola; said General Jackson had misunderstood Governor Masot’s allusion to force; that he had only meant to say that if Jackson attacked him he would repel force by force. Onis said further that there was an article in the capitulation which he had not seen when he wrote his note to me, and which took away part of the aggravation of the case. It was the promise to restore the place in suitable time. He said he had felt it to be his duty to write the note, but that it needed not interrupt the progress of our negotiations, or of those between Mr. Pizarro and Mr. Erving, if we preferred having the treaty concluded there. I told him that was out of the question, but that we were ready to conclude here.

He then said they were willing to give us the Floridas for nothing, and, as there were large claims of indemnity for depredations on both sides, they were willing to set them off against each other, each of the two Governments undertaking to indemnify its own people. For all this they would only ask of us to take the boundary westward at the Calcasieu or Mermentau, from the mouth to the source, thence a line to pass between Adeas and Natchitoches to the Red River, and from that to the Missouri.

I told him all the other points would now be easily adjusted but this last, which was impossible. But we would adjust the rest, and leave that in the same state as it has been hitherto, to be adjusted hereafter. To this, however, he would not at all listen. We parted without any prospect of approximating. …

15th. Attended the Cabinet meeting at the President’s, from noon till near five o’clock. The subject of deliberation was General Jackson’s late transactions in Florida, particularly the taking of Pensacola. The President and all the members of the Cabinet, except myself, are of opinion that Jackson acted not only without, but against, his instructions; that he has committed war upon Spain, which cannot be justified, and in which, if not disavowed by the Administration, they will be abandoned by the country. My opinion is that there was no real, though an apparent, violation of his instructions; that his proceedings were justified by the necessity of the case, and by the misconduct of the Spanish commanding officers in Florida. The question is embarrassing and complicated, not only as involving that of an actual war with Spain, but that of the Executive power to authorize hostilities without a declaration of war by Congress. There is no doubt that defensive acts of hostility may be authorized by the Executive; but Jackson was authorized to cross the Spanish line in pursuit of the Indian enemy. My argument is that the question of the constitutional authority of the Executive is precisely there; that all the rest, even to the order for taking the Fort of Barrancas by storm, was incidental, deriving its character from the object, which was not hostility to Spain, but the termination of the Indian war. This is the justification alleged by Jackson himself, but he also alleges that an imaginary line of the thirty-first degree of latitude could not afford protection to our frontiers while the Indians could have a safe refuge in Florida, and that all his operations were founded on that consideration.

Calhoun, the Secretary at War, generally of sound, judicious, and comprehensive mind, seems in this case to be personally offended with the idea that Jackson has set at nought the instructions of the Department. The President supposes there might be cases which would have justified Jackson’s measures, but that he has not made out his case. Some of the newspapers, especially in Georgia and Virginia, without waiting for the evidence of facts, have commenced attacks, both upon the Administration and upon General Jackson, and the fear of charges of usurpation, of duplicity, and of war, operates to such a degree that there is not vigor to bear out the bold energy of Jackson; and there seems a wish not only to disavow what he has done, but to depreciate even the strong reasons which he alleges for his justification. Standing alone in my opinions, and finding that they necessarily had little weight while counteracting feelings as well as opinions, I developed them not so fully as I might have done, but obtained an adjournment of the question and meeting until to-morrow.

16th. Second Cabinet meeting at the President’s, and the question of the course to be pursued with relation to General Jackson’s proceedings in Florida recurred. As the opinion is unanimously against Jackson excepting mine, my range of argument now is only upon the degree to which his acts are to be disavowed. It was urged that the public dissatisfaction at the taking of Pensacola is so great that the Administration must immediately and publicly disclaim having given any authority for it, and publish all the instructions given to him to throw the blame entirely upon him. There was a violent attack upon him and his measures in the Richmond Enquirer, which came this morning, and which Wirt said he had no doubt was written by Judge Roane. I did not conceive it necessary to make of this affair an immediate newspaper negotiation for public opinion. Crawford said that if the Administration did not immediately declare itself and restore Pensacola, it would be held responsible for Jackson’s having taken it, and for having commenced a war in violation of the Constitution; that the people would not support the Administration in such a war; that our shipping, navigation, and commerce would be destroyed by privateers from all parts of the world, under the Spanish flag, and that the Administration would sink under it.

I thought it would be quite in time if all the documents relating to the subject should be communicated to Congress at their next meeting, by which means they would naturally become public; that to disavow and publish now would look like a disposition entirely to put down Jackson in the public opinion; that he would immediately resign, and turn the attack upon the Administration, and would carry a large portion of the public opinion with him; that Pensacola might be restored, and its capture by him still justified; that I did not believe war would follow from this measure, though I admitted it might; that if it should, it would seriously injure, but not destroy, our shipping and commerce; that the only privateering against us to be apprehended would be from English people, and that to no very great extent; that the Administration would stand or sink under the war, according to its success; and that in this, and in all other cases, the event must rest with the Disposer of events.

In the interval of the discussion I went to my office, and received Hyde de Neuville. He is extremely anxious for the preservation of peace, and desirous of contributing to it. He looked over the map, and I marked out the boundary which it had been agreed at the President’s that I should be authorized to offer; the Trinity, from its mouth to its source, then a line north to the Red River, following the course of that to its source, then crossing to the Rio del Norte, and following the course of it, or the summit of a chain of mountains northward and parallel to it; there stop, or take a line west to the Pacific.

De Neuville said he would himself go and propose this line to Onis, at Bristol …

He asked if I could not write a note passing lightly over the conduct of the officers on both sides, and stating that Pensacola would be restored, with the expression of regret at what has taken place. If I could, he would himself take the letter to Mr. Onis, at Bristol, and if, on conversing with him, he found him prepared to agree to the terms of a treaty which would be satisfactory to us, he would deliver the letter to him; if not, he would bring it back.

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17th. Cabinet meeting at the President’s—the discussion continued upon the answer to be given to Onis, and the restoration of Florida to Spain. The weakness and palsy of my right hand make it impossible for me to report this discussion, in which I continue to oppose the unanimous opinions of the President, the Secretary of the Treasury Crawford, the Secretary of War Calhoun, and the Attorney-General Wirt. I have thought that the whole conduct of General Jackson was justifiable under his orders, although he certainly had none to take any Spanish fort. My principle is that everything he did was defensive; that as such it was neither war against Spain nor violation of the Constitution. … But I see difficulties in holding Pensacola without an act of Congress, and now urge that the taking may be justified, and yet the place restored, on the express condition that hereafter Spain shall fulfil her treaty.

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20th. Received this morning a note from the President requesting me to insert some additional paragraphs in the letter to Mr. Onis, of which I accordingly prepared a draft. Looking over General Jackson’s letters, it struck me there was a new point of view in which his conduct in taking Pensacola was defensible, and at the Cabinet meeting I presented it again, and argued it with all the force I could. It appeared to make some impression upon Mr. Wirt, but the President and Mr. Calhoun were inflexible. resorting to the aid of other European powers—they would also be free from all reproach of having violated the Constitution; that it was not the menace of the Governor of Pensacola that had determined Jackson to take that place; that he had really resolved to take it before; that he had violated his orders, and upon his own arbitrary will set all authority at defiance.

My reasoning was that Jackson took Pensacola only because the Governor threatened to drive him out of the province by force if he did not withdraw; that Jackson was only executing his orders when he received this threat; that he could not withdraw his troops from the province consistently with his orders, and that his only alternative was to prevent the execution of the threat. … But, if the question was dubious, it was better to err on the side of vigor than of weakness—on the side of our own officer, who had rendered the most eminent services to the nation, than on the side of our bitterest enemies, and against him. …

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21. … There was a Cabinet meeting, at which the second draft of my letter to Mr. Onis was read and finally fixed. Mr. Wirt read what he called a second edition of his article for the National Intelligencer. I strenuously re-urged my objections, especially to a paragraph declaring that the President thought he had no constitutional power to have authorized General Jackson to take Pensacola; and to another holding out a hope to the public that, notwithstanding this collision between the officers of the two Governments in Florida, yet we shall an amicable settlement of all our differences with obtain the cession of the Floridas too. … I finally gave up the debate, acquiescing in the determination! which had been taken. The Administration were placed in a dilemma from which it is impossible for them to escape censure by some, and factious crimination by many. If they avow and approve Jackson’s conduct, they incur the double responsibility of having commenced a war against Spain, and of warring in violation of the Constitution without the authority of Congress. If they disavow him, they must give offence to all his friends, encounter the shock of his popularity, and have the appearance of truckling to Spain. For all this I should be prepared. …

Calhoun says he has heard that the Court-martial at first acquitted the two Englishmen, but that Jackson sent the case back to them. He says, also, that last winter there was a company formed in Tennessee, who sent Jackson’s nephew to Pensacola and purchased Florida lands, and that Jackson himself is reported to be interested in the speculation. I hope not.

[January] 23d [1819]. … Among the rumors which have been circulated by the cabal now intriguing in Congress against Jackson, it has been very industriously whispered that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. Madison had declared themselves in very strong terms against him. I had mentioned this report a few days since to the President, who told me that he was convinced there was no foundation for it. …

[February] 3d. General Jackson came to my house this morning, and I showed him the boundary line which has been offered to the Spanish Minister, and that which we proposed to offer upon Melish’s map. He said there were many individuals who would take exception to our receding so far from the boundary of the Rio del Norte, which we claim, as the Sabine, and the enemies of the Administration would certainly make a handle of it to assail them; but the possession of the Floridas was of so great importance to the southern frontier of the United States, and so essential even to their safety, that the vast majority of the nation would be satisfied with the western boundary as we propose, if we obtain the Floridas. He showed me on the map the operations of the British force during the late war, and remarked that while the mouths of the Florida rivers should be accessible to a foreign naval force there would be no security for the southern part of the United States.

He also entered into conversation upon the subject of discussion now pending in the House of Representatives on his proceedings in the late Seminole War, upon that which is preparing in the Senate under the auspices of Mr. Forsyth, of Georgia, and upon the general order given by Jackson in 1817, which was considered as setting at defiance the War Department. He imputed the whole to Mr. Crawford’s resentments against him on account of his having at the last Presidential election supported Mr. Monroe against him; said there was not a single officer in the army known to have been at that time in favor of Monroe whom Crawford had not since insulted; that Mr. Monroe was of an open, fair, unsuspecting character, amiable in the highest degree, and would not believe human nature capable of the baseness which Crawford, while holding a confidential office under him, was practising against him.

I told Jackson that Mr. Crawford had never in any of the discussions on the Seminole War said a word which led me to suppose he had any hostile feeling against him.

He replied that, however that might be, Crawford was now setting the whole delegation of Georgia against him, and by intentional insult and the grossest violation of all military principle had compelled him to issue the order of 1817. Crawford, he said, was a man restrained by no principle, and capable of any baseness. … As to Forsyth, what motive he could have for his present conduct, other than that of subserviency to Crawford, he could not imagine. … The bitterness with which Forsyth is pursuing this attack upon Jackson has become notorious, and the more extraordinary as Forsyth has already been notified that he will be nominated as Minister to Spain before the close of the session of Congress. …

22d. Mr. Onis came at eleven, with Mr. Stoughton, one of the persons attached to his Legation. The two copies of the treaty made out at his house were ready; none of ours were entirely finished. We exchanged the original full powers on both sides, which I believe to be the correct course on the conclusion of treaties, though at Ghent, and on the conclusion of the Convention of 3d July, 1815, the originals were only exhibited and copies exchanged. I had one of the copies of the treaty, and Mr. Onis the other. I read the English side, which he collated, and he the Spanish side, which I collated.

We then signed and sealed both copies on both sides—I first on the English and he first on the Spanish side. Some few errors of copying, and even of translation, were discovered and rectified. It was agreed that the four other copies should be executed in two or three days, as soon as they are all prepared. Mr. Onis took with him his executed copy of the treaty, and I went over with ours to the President’s. … As I was going home from my office I met Mr. Fromentin, a Senator from Louisiana, and asked him if the treaty had been received by the Senate. He said it had— was read, and, as far as he could judge, had been received with universal satisfaction. It was near one in the morning when I closed the day with ejaculations of fervent gratitude to the Giver of all good. It was, perhaps, the most important day of my life. What the consequences may be of the compact this day signed with Spain is known only to the all-wise and all-beneficent Disposer of events, who has brought it about in a manner utterly unexpected and by means the most extraordinary and unforeseen. Its prospects are propitious and flattering in an eminent degree. May they be realized by the same superintending bounty that produced them! May no disappointment embitter the hope which this event warrants us in cherishing, and may its future influence on the destinies of my country be as extensive and as favorable as our warmest anticipations can paint! Let no idle and unfounded exultation take possession of my mind, as if I could ascribe to my own foresight or exertions any portion of the event. It is the work of an intelligent and all-embracing Cause. May it speed as it has begun! for, without a continuation of the blessings already showered down upon it, all that has been done will be worse than useless, and vain.

The acquisition of the Floridas has long been an object of earnest desire to this country. The acknowledgment of a definite line of boundary to the South Sea forms a great epoch in our history. The first proposal of it in this negotiation was my own, and I trust it is now secured beyond the reach of revocation. It was not even among our claims by the Treaty of Independence with Great Britain. It was not among our pretensions under the purchase of Louisiana—for that gave us only the range of the Mississippi and its waters. …  I record the first assertion of this claim for the United States as my own, because it is known to be mine perhaps only to the members of the present Administration, and may perhaps never be known to the public—and, if ever known, will be soon and easily forgotten. The provision, by the acquisition of the Floridas, of a fund for the satisfaction of claims held by citizens of the United States upon the Spanish Government, has been steadily pursued through a negotiation now of fifteen years’ standing. It is of the whole treaty that which, in the case of the ratification, will have the most immediate and sensible effects. The change in the relations with Spain, from the highest mutual exasperation and imminent war to a fair prospect of tranquillity and of secure peace, completes the auspicious characters of this transaction in its present aspect, which fills my heart with gratitude unutterable to the First Cause of all. …

The Floridas will be found, in all probability, less valuable in possession than when merely coveted. Most of the lands will be found to have been granted, and it may be doubted whether enough will be left to raise from their proceeds even the five millions to be paid for the claims. A watchful eye, a resolute purpose, a calm and patient temper, and a favoring Providence, will all be as indispensable for the future as they have been for the past in the management of this negotiation. May they not be found wanting!

 

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Source: Charles Francis Adams, ed. Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848, vol. 4. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1875.