y against the world.

But the victorious general was still the same Andrew Jackson; he did not
leave New Orleans without exhibiting some of the characteristics that
were so well known in Tennessee. Relaxing none of his vigilance, he kept
the city under martial law after the British had sailed, and even after
the British admiral had sent him word of the peace. Many New Orleans
people protested, and certain of them claimed exemption from the work of
defense on the ground that they were citizens of France. All such he
ordered out of the city. Mr. Louaillier, a leading citizen, published a
protest, and Jackson promptly arrested him. Judge Hall, of the United
States District Court, issued a writ of habeas corpus for the prisoner,
and Jackson as promptly arrested the judge himself, and did not release
him until, early in March, official notice of the peace was received.
The judge fined the general a thousand dollars for contempt of court,
and nearly thirty years afterwards the American Congress voted money
enough to repay the sum with interest. Between the battle and the news
of peace, Jackson also signed the order for the execution of six
militiamen whom a court-martial had found guilty of mutiny and
desertion. There were circumstances which seemed to recommend these men
to mercy, and in after years the order was cited along with other things
to prove that Jackson was a cruel and arbitrary commander.

However, the War Department gave him only the mildest of reproofs for
his treatment of the civil authorities at New Orleans, and when he
returned to Tennessee it was to a welcome even more heartfelt and
stirring than the one he got on his return from the Creek war. In the
autumn he was called to Washington to consult with his superiors about
putting the army on a peace footing, and on the journey and at the
capital he was universally received as the hero of the war. The army was
reduced to ten thousand men, and distributed into a northern and a
southern department. The command of the northern department was given to
General Jacob Brown; Jackson got the southern department.

It was about this time that Governor Alston, of South Carolina, got a
letter from his father-in-law, Aaron Burr, of New York, concerning the
approaching presidential election. Burr thought Monroe, the leading
candidate and the man preferred by President Madison, too weak a man for
the great office. He wanted a man of firmness and decision, and he
added, "t