Brooks: Diplomacy and the Borderlands


The hostility of other whites in Florida, particularly the agents of
John Forbes and Company, also worked to his disadvantage. He
was sentenced to be hanged.
 Ambrister plead guilty of leading the Indians in war against the
United States, and was sentenced to be shot. In Ambrister's case,
which has been considered the more definite, one of the officers
sitting on the court-martial reconsidered his vote, which changed
the sentence from death to fifty lashes. Jackson, who approved of
both original sentences, discountenanced the reconsideration. On
April 29, Ambrister was shot and Arbuthnot was hanged.
 Not wishing to return to the United States, and having heard
that a body of Indians had gathered at Pensacola, some 275 miles
away, Jackson marched westward from St. Marks. He accused the
Spanish governor at Pensacola of having aided the Indians, and
demanded the surrender of the town. The basis for his accusation
was so weak that the venture had best be explained as simply a
part of his plan for seizing the provinces, and holding them for
indemnity." Whatever the real motive, on May 24 he occupied
Pensacola, and three days later Fort Barrancas, to which the gov-
ernor and garrison had fled, and which they defended briskly but
briefly. The Spaniards were allowed to go to Havana, and a guard
of United States troops was left in charge of the fort. Jackson had
meanwhile ordered General Gaines to seize St. Augustine, but such
a drastic step was discountenanced by the War Department and
the orders were revoked. The general then retired to his home
in Tennessee, leaving the diplomats with an embarrassing faith
accompli.
 Onis' sojourn at Bristol was disturbed, as has been explained,
by increasingly dire reports from the Floridas. While he awaited
their confirmation, he received the instructions of April 6 and
April 25, the latter of which gave him his first authority to place
the boundary limit as far west as the Sabine. From this date it was
the constant effort of both Onis and Adams to push the negotiation
as fast as propriety would permit, in the hope of bringing their
diplomatic positions into accord before frontier collisions should
make a peaceable settlement impossible. Thus each will be seen
with one hand brandishing violent protests because of insulted
national pride, but with the other reaching for some sort of a con-
clusive agreement.