Brooks: Diplomacy and tke Borderlands


erty damaged and the official censure of General Jackson. Adams
noted that the restitution had already been ordered, and then took
up the gauntlet on Pizarro's other demands, the payment of dam-
ages and the castigation of Jackson. The result was one of Adams'
most notable state papers, one which has been described in many
ways, from a masterly document to obvious special pleading. It
was in the form of instructions to Erving."
 Because Pizarro had stressed the execution in Spanish territory
of two subjects of a Power at peace with Spain, Adams' "narrative
of dark and complicated depravity" consisted largely of an ac-
count of the activities and connections of Arbuthnot with Nicholls
and of Ambrister with Woodbine and McGregor. He had some-
thing to say besides concerning the "disposition of enmity to the
United States, and ... utter disregard to the obligations of the
treaty [of 1795]" shown by the Florida officials. Carrying his
refutation of Pizarro's charges to the extreme, he said that it was
the Spanish officials of the Floridas who should be summoned for
inquiry rather than Jackson, whom he praised." Accompanying
the letter were seventy-two documents to substantiate its argu-
ments.
 Shorter communications of the same purport were sent by the
secretary to Onis, and to Richard Rush and other ministers abroad,
in order that the official position of the United States might be gen-
erally understood. This was done in an effort to combat the effect
of Pizarro's argumentative note to ]rving of August 29, which
had been sent to all the courts of Europe and published in numer-
ous newspapers before it had been received at Washington.
 Adams' defense of Jackson also met the test of battle in Congress
 and in the press of this country. Monroe on December 3 submitted
 to Congress many of the documents on the "Seminole War"; and
 in the National Itelligencer of December 28 were published the
 famous instructions to Erring of November 28 and a continuation
 addressed to him on December 2.
 Nearly all the other important governmental officials hesitated
 to approve Jackson. Calhoun and Crawford in the Cabinet, John
 Forsyth in the Senate, and William Henry Harrison and Joseph
 Hopkinson in the House were especially opposed to the popular
 hero. Onis wrote that Adams favored the General in order to gain
 popular support for his own presidential ambitions. That opinion