ever, and the United States were at the point of
exhaustion.

Moreover, the ruling class in one important section of the country was
rather inclined to weaken than to help the government. The Federalist
leaders in New England were against the French, against President
Madison, against the war. They had been in opposition ever since
President Jefferson went into office in 1801. Distrusting the Southwest,
and opposing the expansion of the country in that direction, they had
talked about a breaking up of the Union when Louisiana was purchased in
1803, and again when the State of Louisiana was admitted in 1811-12.
When the war began, the governors of several New England States refused
to turn their militia over to the Union generals. In 1814, several
legislatures, the Massachusetts legislature in the lead, were arranging
a convention to propose far-reaching changes in the Constitution of the
United States, and many feared that the outcome would be the disruption
of the Union and a separate New England confederation. True, New England
men were fighting bravely by land and sea for their country, but the
leading Federalists of New England were, as a rule, disaffected. A
notable exception was John Quincy Adams, who, distrusting the leaders of
his own party, had gone over to the party of Jefferson.

The time was now come for the Southwest, the region so long distrusted,
to show whether or not it was loyal to the Union. The British were
aiming at that quarter a powerful military and naval force. Evidently
believing the stories of disaffection in the Southwest, they had sent
ahead of their expedition printed invitations to the Southwestern people
to throw off the yoke of the Union. The Spaniards of the Gulf coast,
probably not ignorant of the American designs on both the Floridas, and
resenting the seizure of Mobile, were no better than passive allies of
the British, who were thus enabled to use Pensacola as a base for their
campaign against Mobile, New Orleans, and the great Mississippi Valley
beyond.

When Jackson reached Mobile, in the middle of August, he was already
thoroughly angered with the Spaniards for harboring refugee Creeks and
giving them arms. He had always been in favor of seizing the Floridas;
that had been the real object of the expedition down the Mississippi in
1813 which he had commanded. The true reason why he and his army were
dismissed at Natchez was that the authorities at Washington had changed
their m