ht to the
dilemma of surrender to the foreigner or secession and dismemberment
from within.

Massachusetts invited representatives of her sister States to a
Convention at Hartford. The Convention was to be consultative, but its
direct and avowed aim was to force the conclusion of peace on any terms.
Some of its promoters were certainly prepared, if they did not get their
way, to secede and make a separate peace for their own State. The
response of New England was not as unanimous as the conspirators had
hoped. Vermont and New Hampshire refused to send delegates. Rhode Island
consented, but qualified her consent with the phrase "consistently with
her obligations"--implying that she would be no party to a separate
peace or to the break-up of the Union. Connecticut alone came in without
reservation. Perhaps this partial failure led the plotters to lend a
more moderate colour to their policy. At any rate, secession was not
directly advocated at Hartford. It was hinted that if such evils as
those of which the people of New England complained proved permanent, it
might be necessary; but the members of the Convention had the grace to
admit that it ought not to be attempted in the middle of a foreign war.
Their good faith, however, is dubious, for they put forward a proposal
so patently absurd that it could hardly have been made except for the
purpose of paving the way for a separate peace. They declared that each
State ought to be responsible for its own defences, and they asked that
their share of the Federal taxes should be paid over to them for the
purpose. With that and a resolution to meet again at Boston and consider
further steps if their demands were not met, they adjourned. They never
reassembled.

In the South the skies were clearing a little. Jackson of Tennessee,
vigorous and rapid in movement, a master of Indian warfare, leading an
army of soldiers who worshipped him as the Old Guard worshipped
Napoleon, by a series of quick and deadly strokes overthrew the Creeks,
followed them to their fastnesses, and broke them decisively at Tohopeka
in the famous "hickory patch" which was the holy place of their nation.

He was rewarded in the way that he would have most desired: by a
commission against the English, who had landed at Pensacola in Spanish
territory, perhaps with the object of joining hands with their Indian
allies. They found those allies crushed by Jackson's energy, but they
still retained their foothold on