Article Title: Two extracts from London papers showing a favorable reaction to President Monroe's declared intention of restoring Pensacola to Spanish rule.  
Author: 
Published in: National Intelligencer
Place of Publication: Washington, DC
Publication Date: 11/28/1818


  
  
There have been some among us who have disapproved of the course pursued by the Executive in the restoration of the posts of Pensacola and St. Marks to the power from which they were taken.  It is not to shake their sentiments, nor to confirm the opinions of those who have thought otherwise, that we introduce the following views of the subject, from foreign sources, but to show to our readers generally the impression that act has produced abroad on those disposed to respect our country, but who feared that ambition of conquest, the bane of Republics, was about to lead us from the straight path of plain dealing into the crooked wiles of European policy :  
FROM THE LONDON MORNING CHRONICLE, SEPT. 5.  
Our readers will find, in another part of our paper, a very important article to which we yesterday alluded, taken from the National Intelligencer, on the subject of the occupation of Pensacola and the other Spanish forts in the Floridas, by the American troops under General Jackson.  This may be considered in the light of an official declaration, on the part of the government of the United States, of the circumstances which led to the transactions in question, and of the line of conduct which it means hereafter to pursue.   
We are told that " the President of the United States has decided, that Pensacola, and the other Spanish posts, which have been taken by General Jackson in the Floridas, shall be restored to the Spanish authority ; but with a requisition, that the King of Spain shall hereafter keep such a force in those colonies as shall enable him to execute with fidelity the fifth article of the treaty between the United States and Spain."  
By this treaty, Spain has stipulated not to suffer her Indians to attack the citizens of the United States, or the Indians inhabiting their territory ; and the United States stipulated not to allow the last mentioned Indians to commence hostilities against the subjects of his Catholic Majesty or his Indians.   
The Seminole Indians occupy the lands on each side of the line between the United States and Florida ; much the greater part of them living within the limits of the king of Spain.  They are neither citizens of the United States nor subjects of the King of Spain, and owe no allegiance to the laws of either power, are the owners of the soil which they occupy, hold a qualified sovereignty over it, and exercise, on all occasions, the right of making war and peace.   
It was owing to the acknowledged incompetency of Spain to fulfil the stipulation of her treaty, by restraining the hostilities of the Seminoles by force, that the United States were compelled to take up arms in their own defence.  Yet such was the delicacy of their government towards Spain, that the first order to their general expressly forbade him to cross the Spanish line.  A second order to the same purport was issued ; and it was not until it became apparent, that driving the Indians beyond the limits of the United States was doing nothing towards extinguishing the war, since, in falling back within the limits of Florida, they were still at home, with all the means of incursion and annoyance which they possessed at the commencement of hostilities, that a third order was issued authorizing the general, in case the Indians presented themselves in a body beyond the line, to cross it and attack them.  Shortly after issuing this order, a massacre was committed by the Indians, which left the United States no alternative but to carry the war into Florida, and to do for Spain what she confessed herself unable to do for herself ; and a fourth order was issued to this effect, but expressly commanding the general, at the same time, if the Indians should take refuge under a Spanish fort, not to attack them in that situation, but to report the case to the Secretary of War.   
In attacking the posts of St. Mark and Pensacola, with the fort of Barancas, General Jackson, we are told, acted not under any authority of his government, but on facts, which were, for the first time, brought to his knowledge on the immediate theatre of war; facts which implicated the Spanish authorities in that quarter as the instigators and auxiliaries of the war.  Of the important facts alleged by him, satisfactory proof has already been furnished to the President.  In the mean time, as Congress only has the power of declaring war, and the President does not consider himself authorized to retain the Spanish posts, which would be an act of war, the resolution had been taken to restore them, and to demand from the King of Spain the punishment of those officers whose improper conduct led to their seizure.   
Such is the substance of the demi-official statement in the National Intelligencer.   
And here we have a striking exemplification of the incalculable advantages of that form of government which the people of the United States are so fortunate to possess.  There the powers entrusted by the people to their executive, are fixed and defined ; the government is only strong within the limits prescribed by the national will, and is nothing against that will.  There is no interest separate from that of the nation, and if the executive should ever venture to act in defiance to the will of the nation, it has no resource on which it can fall back for protection, but must prepare for the consequences of a real responsibility.  
In this case we have, on one hand, a powerful republic of eleven millions of people, possessing a considerable surplus of revenue raised without a single internal tax, with a growing navy, consisting already of above a hundred ships of war, and a commercial navy closely approaching to that of this country, and almost equal to that of all the rest of Europe.  On the other hand, we have a country overwhelmed with debt, without a shilling for its most pressing wants, and a government exhibiting to the nations the extreme of weakness and imbecility.  The territory which gave rise to the dispute is one from which the former state would derive the greatest advantages, and which, in the hands of the other, is productive of little benefit.  There can be no question, that if power alone were to regulate the issue, nothing could be more easy than for America, particularly in the present embarrassment of Spain ; to retain possession of the territory which she has occupied.   
How different the conduct of this great republic from that of the avaricious though purblind legitimates of Europe !  How different the conquests of the one and of the other !  While Austria, without a shadow of right, holds under her sway the discontented people of Ragusa, of Venice, and of the kingdom of Italy ; while Prussia seized on Saxony, Russia on Poland, Sweden on Norway, Sardinia on Genoa, c. c. this great State adds to her power by a far more infallible means.  The North Americans have, in our own day, from a handful of people, become one of the most powerful nations of the world, by the conquests of industry and civilization, under just and equal laws.  No large standing armies are required to keep down a discontented population.  Let America only continue to extend her conquests in this manner, her power will increase with a rapidity sufficient to gratify her utmost impatience, let her leave to the legitimates of Europe every thing that savors of rapacity and aggression ; let them imagine they add to their strength by increasing their possessions, by adding fresh slaves to those slaves already under their sway, and by adding to their mercenary bands ; but let America continue to owe the increase of her strength to the energies of a people in the possession of just and equal laws.   
When the news of the occupation of Pensacola first reached this country, the Treasury scribes set no bounds to their joy, " It has pleased (said the Courier) the republican cabinet to abandon the old-fashioned policy of legitimate monarchies, and to model its proceedings upon the repulsive practice of Napoleon."  Admire only the impudence of this, after what we have seen of the legitimate monarchies in our own days.  We then told the Courier not to pass sentence of condemnation on America, merely because she had a republican government, but to judge of her acts by their own merit or demerit.  The conduct of the government of WASHINGTON, we observed, is usually characterized by so much prudence, that the presumption is, it will in this case disappoint the malicious expectations of the Treasury writersthat government is really a responsible one.  If its conduct does not admit of justification, it has more to dread from its own subjects than from all the Legitimate monarchs of Europe.  The event has corresponded to our expectations.  The Courier, and the advocates of legitimacy, would, no doubt, have wished it were otherwise, that they might have something like a justification of the crimes of Europe in the crimes of America.   
FROM THE LONDON EXAMINER, OF SEPTEMBER 6.  
This is a week of most interesting and important intelligence.  And first for the first real government in the world ; for such the faithless meanness of the Allies and the paltry imitation of them by England have conspired to make it.  There is at length news from the United States, that may be regarded as all but official.  It is comprised in an article which has appeared in the demi-official paper, the National Intelligencer, and the substance of which we proceed to give, as it was very sufficiently abridged in yesterday's Chronicle.   
[Here follows the abbreviation given in the above article from the Morning Chronicle.]  
If this be true (and there is no reason to doubt it, though the European Governments have rendered suspicion the first natural impulse on such occasions,) nobody can help drawing a striking contrast between the conduct of those governments and that of the North American.  People begin to fear, from the delay of explanation, that the American, like the French Republic, partly provoked and partly spoiled by bad example, had given way to the common appetite of the great vulgar for spoliation ; and their hirelings, with their usual self-betrayment, began not to fear, but to chuckle.  It was extremely natural in the latter to do so.  Had the Americans condescended to imitate them and their masters, it would at once have served to ease their consciences, to secure their ill-gotten gains, to verify one or two of their despairing jokes, and to keep them in that hopelessness of mankind, which they have both the least and greatest right to indulge in, and which lies, like embittering poison, at the bottom of all their pleasures as well as opinions.   
To us, the announcement of the PRESIDENT is particularly grateful ; not because we are of opinion that a just arrangement might not have been made for the cession of Florida, but because this most plain, obvious and quiet way of acting up to the letter of the thing is the most unequivocal mode of settling it ; because we take a family pride as well as a national one, in the noble politics of our American kinsmen ; and because we formerly experienced some apprehensions of common place ambition on the part of MR. MONROE, in which it will ever be our delight to say we were mistaken.   
A most curious and exemplary contrast of this news is afforded in that of America's royal neighbor the black sovereign of Hayti.  This man, whom the " legitimates" do not like because he is a soldier of fortune, whom the bigotted part of the whites think meanly of, because he is not of their colour, whom the liberal part began to shake heads at when they saw him so eager for the trappings of royalty, and who was waiting with more or less anxiety for eventful acknowledgement from them all, has had the folly to go and lay claim to the republican part of the island, and in a manner truly legitimate.  He first makes a military movement; then he issues a Proclamation to quiet the minds of the republicans, and pretends he has no sinister intentions ; then he fairly hems them in with a cordon of troops ; and lastly he says, Join me, or take the consequences as traitors ! We think we never saw such an impudent specimen of the bad habits of a military life, and of the impatient hunger and thirst instantly produced by the taste of Kingship.  The late President PETION, of whom he now proves himself to have been afraid, may now more than ever be considered as a wise Chief and a true lover of freedom,a true follower of those great men in America, whose title of President he could afford to be contented with.  Look, hopeless slaves of despotism !  Look, hopeful aspirers after Liberty !