Florida was to deliver those respective Provinces to Colonel Forbes, himself, who had from The United States no authority to receive them. And, although expressly advised of this fact by Colonel Forbes, with the request that the Orders of Delivery might be amended, and made conformable to the Treaty, and to the Royal Command, Governor Mahy did not so amend it, but reduced Colonel Forbes to the alternative of submitting to further delays, or of departing with an imperfect and ambiguous Order of Delivery of West Florida, authorizing its surrender to the legally constituted Authorities of The United States, (that is, as Governor Mahy, well knew, to General Andrew Jackson) only, in case of any accident happening to Colonel Forbes, whom he still affected to consider, notwithstanding his own express declaration to the contrary, as the Commissioned Agent of The United States to that effect.

The 20 boxes of Documents and Archives which were at The Havannah, as has been mentioned, had been transmitted thither from Pensacola; and contained all the most important records of property in West Florida. The possession of them was in the highest degree important to The United States, not only as the Vouchers of individual property, but as protecting guards against the imposture of fraudulent Grants.

The same persevering system of withholding Documents which it was their duty to deliver, has marked, I am deeply concerned to say, the conduct of both the Commanders of East and West Florida, who were charged respectively, to deliver those Provinces to The United States. It is to this cause, and to this alone, as appears from a review of all the transactions of which you have complained, that must be traced the origin of all those severe measures which General Jackson himself was the first, while deeming them indispensable to the discharge of his own official duties, to lament. Charged as he was with the trust of receiving the Provinces in behalf of The United States, of maintaining their rights of property within them, of guarding them to the utmost of his power from those frauds to which there was too much reason to apprehend they would be liable, and to which the retention of the Documents gave so great and dangerous scope; entrusted, from the necessity of the case, during the interval of time, while the general Laws of The United States remained unextended to the Provinces, with the various powers which had, until that time, been exercised by the Spanish Governors, and which included the administration of justice between Individuals; it was impossible that he should not feel the necessity of exercising, under circumstances thus exasperating and untoward, every authority committed to him by the Supreme Authority of his Country, to preserve inviolate, so far as on him depended, the interest of that Country, and the sacred obligations of individual right.

Y

In the proceedings connected with the delivery of the Province, he had as little reason to be satisfied with the conduct of Colonel Callava, as with that of the Captain-General. On a plea of indisposition, that Officer had, on the day of the surrender, evaded the performance of a solemn promise, which General Jackson had considered an indispensable preliminary to the act; and afterwards the Colonel positively declined its fulfilment. He had, however, completed the Surrender of the Province with which he had been charged. He had declined producing to General Jackson any Credential as a Commissioner for performing that act; but had informed him that he should make the Surrender as the Commanding Officer of the Province, by virtue of Orders from his Superior. This service had been consummated; and Colonel Callava, whom General Jackson had formerly notified that he had closed with him his Official Correspondence for ever, was bound, by the special Stipulation of the Treaty, to have evacuated, as one of the Spanish Officers, the Province, before the 22d of August. If General Jackson had, in courtesy to Colonel Callava, considered him, notwithstanding his own disclaimer of the character, as a Commissioner, for the delivery of the Province, there can be no pretence that he was entitled to special privileges under it, after he had avowedly performed all its duties; after he had been informed by General Jackson that their Official Correspondence was finally closed; and after the date when, by the positive engagements of the Treaty which he was to execute, he was bound to have departed from the Province. From the time when his functions for the Surrender of the Province were discharged, he could remain in Pensacola no otherwise than as a private unprivileged Individual, amenable to the duly constituted American Authorities of the Place, and subject to the same controul of General Jackson, as a private Citizen of The United States would have been to that of the Governor of the Floridas, before the Surrender had taken place.

That this was the opinion of Colonel Callava himself, and of his friends who applied to Judge Fromentin for the Writ of Habeas Corpus, to rescue him from the arrest under which he was placed by the order of General Jackson, is apparent from their conduct on that occasion. It is stated by Judge Fromentin, that, before granting the supposed Writ of Habeas Corpus, he required that Colonel Callava should enter into a recognizance for 20,000 dollars, with 2 Securities, each for the amount of 10,000 dollars; the condition of which recognizance was, that Colonel Callava should personally be and appear before the Judge of The United States for West Florida, &c. whenever required so to do; that he should not depart from the City of Pensacola, without the leave of the said Court, nor send away, remove, or otherwise dispose of, unknown to the said Court, any of the Papers in question. It was only upon the promise of his friends that this recognizance should be

executed, that Judge Fromentin consented to issue the Writ of Habeas Corpus; and this recognizance renounces in fact every pretension of exemption from the judicial authority of the Country; and consequently of the diplomatick privileges of a Commissioner:

It has been seen that the most important Documents relating to the property of West Florida had been transmitted to The Havannah ; there remained, however, a portion of them, particularly of Judicial Records, relating to the titles of individual property. Some of these Colonel Callava did deliver up with the Province; others, of the same description and character, indispensable for the administration of Justice in the Province, and useless at The Havannah, whither it was his intention to have transported them, were retained; not in his possession, but in that of Don Domingo Sousa, a Spanish Officer, who, by the Stipulation of the Treaty, ought also to have departed from the Province before the 22d of August.

The day immediately preceding that date, the Alcalde of Pensacola, at the Suit of a Woman, in a humble walk, indeed, of life, but whose rights were, in the eye of General Jackson, equally entitled to his protection with those of the highest rank, or the most commanding opulence, had represented to him that a number of Documents, belonging to the Alcalde's Office, and relating to Estates at that Place, and to Suits there instituted, were in the possession of Domingo Sousa; that the necessity for obtaining possession of those Documents was urgent, and therefore he requested the Governor to authorize some one to make a regular demand of them, and to ascertain what they were. Governor Jackson, accordingly, forthwith commissioned the Secretary of the Territory, the Alcalde of Pensacola himself, and the Clerk of the County Court of Escambia, to proceed to the dwelling of Sousa, to make demand of all such Papers or Documents, belonging to the Alcalde's Office, as might be in his possession; and in case of Sousa's refusal to exhibit or deliver the same, immediately to report the fact to him, the Governor, in writing. These Commissioners the next day reported to the Governor that they had examined the Papers in the possession of Sousa; that they had found among them 4 sets of Papers of the kind which belonged to the Office of the Alcalde, and among them those in which the Woman from whom the first application had proceeded was interested; that they had, both verbally and in writing, demanded of him the delivery of those Documents, which no private Individual had a right to keep, as they related to the rights of Persons holding or claiming property in the Province, but that Sousa had refused to deliver them, alleging that he was but the Servant of Colonel Callava, and could not deliver them without his order. In the transactions of Sousa, on this occasion, is manifested the same consciousness that the claim of diplomatick privilege, set up by Colonel Callava, to screen him from the operation of the authority of Governor Jackson,

was without foundation. For, although he refused to deliver up the Papers, conformably to the Governor's command, he submitted to the examination of them by the Commissioners, in obedience to the same authority; and, though he declined receiving from them the Letter demanding the delivery of the Papers, he told them that, to relieve himself from the responsibility of keeping them, he should deliver them to Governor Callava himself. They were accordingly sent to the house of Colonel Callava, and put into the possession of his Steward, Fullerat. It is clear, however, that, if the Papers, while in Sousa's possession, were privileged from delivering up at the command of Governor Jackson, they were equally privileged from examination by the same Authority; and, if they were not lawfully screened from his process in the custody of Sousa, they could not be made so by removing them to the house of Colonel Callava. The truth is, that the removal of the Documents, at that time, and in such a manner, was a high and aggravated contempt of the lawful authority of the Governor. It not only claimed for Colonel Callava diplomatick immunities, but assumed that he was still the Governor of the Province, and that Sousa was amenable for his conduct only to him. Colonel Callava might, on the same pretence, have retained the whole body of the Spanish Officers and Troops under his command at Pensacola, and insisted upon exercising over them all his extinguished authority, as Governor and Commander-in-Chief, after the 21st of August, as he could to exercise any official authority within the Province, over Domingo Sousa, or to extricate him from the lawful jurisdiction of Governor Jackson.

It is under these circumstances that the subsequent measures of Governor Jackson are to be considered. He immediately issued an Authority to Colonel Robert Butler, and Colonel John Miller, to seize the body of Sousa, together with the Papers, and to bring them before him, that Sousa might answer such interrogatories as might be put to him, and comply with such Order and Decree, touching the said Documents and Records, as the rights of the Individuals, secured to them by the Treaty, might require, and the justice of the case might demand. By virtue of this Order, Sousa was brought before Governor Jackson, and again recognized the authority under which he was taken, by answering the interrogatories put to him. But he had already put the Papers and Documents out of his possession; and thus, as far as was in his power, baffled the ends of justice, and set at defiance the lawful authority of the Governor.

In this transaction, Colonel Callava was avowedly the principal Agent; and altogether unjustifiable as it was, whatever consequences of inconvenience to himself resulted from it, must be imputed to him. It was an undisguised effort to prostrate the authority of The United States in the Province; nor had Governor Jackson any other alter

native to choose, than tamely to see the sovereign power of his Country, entrusted to him, trampled under foot, and exposed to derision by a Foreigner, remaining there only upon his sufferance, or by the vigorous exercise of his authority, to vindicate at once the rights of The United States, and the just claims of Individuals to their protection.

Governor Jackson could consider Colonel Callava in no other light than that of a private Individual, entitled indeed, as the Officer of a Foreign Power, to courtesy, but not to exemption from the process of the Law. Notwithstanding his improper conduct, Governor Jackson, in the first instance, authorized Colonel Butler and Dr. Bronaugh, accompanied by Mr. Brackenridge, the Alcalde, to wait upon him and his Steward, and demand from them the specified Papers, which Sousa had declared, in his answer to the interrogatories, to have been delivered to the Steward at Governor Callava's house. It was only in case of the refusal to give up the Papers, that the Order extended to the seizure of the Person of Colonel Callava, that he might be made to appear before Governor Jackson, to answer interrogatories, and to abide by, and perform, such Order and Decree as the justice of the case might demand. This demand was accordingly made, and although at the first moment peremptorily refused, yet, upon Colonel Callava's being informed that his refusal would be considered as setting at defiance the authority of the Governor of the Floridas, and of the consequences to himself which must ensue upon his persisting therein, he desired to be furnished with a Memorandum, setting forth the Documents required, which was accordingly done. But when the delivery of the Papers was again demanded of him, he repeated the refusal to deliver them, and attempted both to avoid the personal approach of Colonel Butler and Dr. Bronaugh, and to exhibit a resistance by force of arms to the execution of the Governor's Order. And it is not a little remarkable, that among the Persons who appeared thus arrayed against the Authority of The United States, to accomplish the denial and removal of the Papers, was a Man against whom the most important of those Papers were judicial decisions of Governor Callava himself, in behalf of the orphan Children; for the establishment of whose rights they were indispensably necessary, and at whose application they had been required.

Standing thus, in open defiance to the operation of the Law, Colonel Callava was taken before the Governor; and there, refusing to answer the interrogatories put to him, and asserting the groundless pretension of answering only as a Commissioner, and by a Protest against the acts of the Governor, he was, by his order, committed to prison, until the Documents should be delivered to the Alcalde. On the next day a search Warrant for the Papers was issued by the Governor, upon