Months passed without a reply. Temptation to action
grew; and when, in October, three thousand Tennessee troops arrived
under one of the subordinate officers in the recent Creek War, longer
hesitation seemed a sign of weakness. Jackson therefore led his forces
against the Spanish stronghold, now in British hands, and quickly
forced its surrender. His men blew up one of the two forts, and the
British blew up the other. Within a week the work was done and the
General, well pleased with his exploit, was back at Mobile.
There he found awaiting him, in reply to his July letter, an order
from the new Secretary of War, James Monroe, forbidding him to touch
Pensacola. No great harm was done, for the invaded territory was no
longer neutral soil, and the task of soothing the ruffled feelings of
the Spanish court did not prove difficult.
As the autumn wore on, signs multiplied that the first British
objective in the South was to be New Orleans, and no efforts were
spared by the authorities at Washington to arouse the Southwest to its
danger and to stimulate an outpouring of troops sufficient to repel
any force that might be landed at the mouth of the Mississippi.
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