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CHAPTER tions had been made in consequence through that port, and large balances had accumulated there belonging to 1818. Northern merchants. In payment of these balances, the profuse issues of that branch had been eagerly caught up and remitted; and the New York and Boston branches, constantly called upon to redeem these Baltimore notes, had been almost entirely restricted from making any loans of their own. The mother bank at Philadelphia, after some feeble remonstrances, which were totally disregarded at Baltimore, had herself followed in the same track; and most of the loans, during the year after the commencement of business, had been accumulated at these two points, a very considerable portion of them being for the benefit of the speculating presidents and directors. Even the treasury of the United States was made a party to this scheme, by furnishing the mother bank and the Baltimore branch with large drafts on the public funds at New York and Boston, as a means of partially meeting the heavy balances accumulating against them at the New York and Boston offices.

March.

The Boston branch, to prevent an absolute stoppage, had been at length obliged to refuse the notes of the other branches. It was in vain that the bank had imported seven millions of specie, at an expense to itself of over half a million of dollars; that cash went faster than it came. The bank was further weakened by the great reduction in the amount of government deposits, five millions of the surplus on hand being applied by the commissioners of the sinking fund to pay off the first installment of the Louisiana loan, the greater part of which was held abroad. The pressure soon began to be so severe, that, to protect the mother bank and the northern branches against the excessive issues of the Baltimore Aug. 23. branch, it became necessary, in conformity to the prac

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XXXI.

tice already adopted at Boston, expressly to authorize the CHAPTER branches to refuse, except in payments on government account, all notes but their own.

This necessary step of self-defense was followed up by a call on the state banks for the payment of their balances; the result of which was, (after all kinds of tricks and evasions on the part of many of the debtor banks, who met the most reasonable demands of the national bank with nothing but complaints and reproaches,) the stoppage of payment on the part of all the western banks whose resumption, in fact, had never been more than nominal. The consequent derangement of the currency and the exchanges produced a tremendous clamor, directed chiefly against the Bank of the United States, as though that bank had been solely, or even chiefly to blame; and which was carried so far that several state Legislatures, especially those of Maryland and Ohio, un dertook to lay taxes on the branches, in some cases prohibitory in their amount, with the avowed intention of compelling them to close; nothing else being needed, as it seemed to be supposed, to secure to the people the sovereign felicity of running into debt without ever being called on to pay.

1818.

Dec.

Congress came together in the midst of this excitement, and among its first proceedings was the appointment of a committee of the House, of which Spencer was chairman, with full authority to send for persons and papers, in order to a thorough investigation of the affairs of the bank. This committee entered on their duty with 1819. zeal, and, in a very able report, soon laid bare the mis management of that institution, and the cause of its embarrassments. Various propositions were made, in consequence, to repeal the charter, or, at least, to direct a quo warranto to issue against it. A vast deal of indignation

Jan. 16.

XXXI.

CHAPTER was expressed against the bank and its management, of which, however, a considerable part came from those who 1819. desired, by destroying it, to open the way to a general re-suspension. On the other hand, of those most disgusted at the misconduct of the president and the knot of speculating directors—a conduct in such striking contrast to the honest and judicious management of the old bank-many were disposed still to uphold the institution itself as the only present safeguard against a new suspension. Nor was any thing done by Congress except the passage of an, act restricting stockholders, in how many names soever their stock might be held, to the charter limit of thirty votes. Jones, the speculating president, and other speculating directors, resigned. Cheves was elected in Jones's place; and under his energetic administration, a course of rigorous retrenchment was commenced, which saved, indeed, the bank and the currency, but did by no means alleviate the immediate general distress, nor at all appease the public clamor.

The subject next in interest was that of the Seminole Jan. 12. war. Nelson, of Virginia, presented a report on behalf of the majority of the Military Committee of the House, in which the hanging of Arbuthnot and Ambrister was pointedly condemned. A minority report, presented by Richard M. Johnson, maintained the opposite view, which also had the powerful support of the administration in Adams's diplomatic letters on that affair already laid before the House. In a protracted debate of three weeks, the whole subject was very fully discussed. Mercer, of Virginia, maintained that the American government had been the aggressor in the whole business, as well against the Seminoles as the Spaniards; that the power of Congress in the matter of making war had been usurped upon; that the trials by court-martial were a mere mock

DEBATE ON THE SEMINOLE WAR.

655

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ery, since the parties were not liable to trial in that way; CHAPTER and the execution of the British and Indian prisoners in every respect unjustifiable. Clay looked at the proceed- 1819. ings much in the same light; but, with an ironical tenderness for the administration, he seemed disposed to shift the responsibility upon Jackson's shoulders. If his conduct had been in any way authorized, surely there would have been no offer to restore St. Mark's and Pensacola.

It was urged as an apology for the executions by Johnson, Holmes, Tallmadge, and others, that, as the Indians kill their captives, it was but a just retaliation to kill Indian captives; nor could white men, fighting on the Indian side, expect any better treatment than the Indians themselves. They objected, indeed, to any discussion of the subject, since Jackson was responsible only to the president, and could only be called to account by court-martial. But others, who sustained the administration and the general, Forsyth among the number, frankly admitted that to express an opinion on the matter was wholly within the scope of congressional authority. Besides Clay and Mercer, Cobb, of Georgia, went strongly for censure. Storrs, of New York, and Tyler, of Virginia, also took the same side. The general found defenders, besides those already mentioned, in Philip Barbour, Poindexter, Baldwin, and Desha. Harrison vindicated Jackson's course except in shooting Ambrister, which he thought irregular, as not sustained by the sentence of the court. An effort was made to get rid of the subject by an indefinite postponement; but to this the administration party would not agree. The vote finally stood, for disapproving the execution of Arbuthnot and Feb. 8. Ambrister, 62 to 103; for disapproving the seizure of Pensacola, 70 to 100.

In the Senate, Lacock, of Pennsylvania, made a re- Feb. 24.

CHAPTER port, which, grave as its accusations were, was suffered XXXI. to lie on the table without action. It charged Gaines 1819. with having called out the Creeks without any authority whatever, and Jackson with having exceeded his authority by calling directly on his old mounted volunteers, instead of applying to the Governor of Tennessee for a draft of infantry in the usual way. It also charged upon him usurpation of authority, not only in having seized the Spanish posts without orders, but in undertaking to organize a civil and military government at Pensacola. It was further stated that, two months later, and after the Seminole campaign was entirely ended, he had formed a scheme for seizing St. Augustine, under pretenses similar to those employed in the other cases, and had issued orders to that effect to Gaines, of which the execution was only prevented by a seasonable countermand from the War Department.

Confident in the support of the executive, and in that popular admiration always bestowed on vigor of action— an admiration little likely to be shocked at any extremities exercised on Spaniards, Englishmen, or Indians— Jackson, while this discussion was going on in Congress, was making a sort of triumphal progress from Nashville to Washington, and thence to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. According to a statement under Lacock's own name, in reply to certain rude strictures on his report, written, as he alleged, by one of Jackson's aids-de-camp, and inserted, by the general's procurement, in the National Intelligencer, the general" was vociferous, in the public taverns and ball-rooms of Washington, in his imprecations, and violent in his threats of personal vengeance, even to the cutting off of the ears of some of the members"—an example freely imitated by his suit; and that, too, although by the articles of war, every offi