acts upon arriving in the
defenseless city had been to declare martial law; and under the decree
the daily life of the inhabitants had been rigorously circumscribed,
citizens had been pressed into military service, men under suspicion
had been locked up, and large quantities of cotton and other supplies
had been seized for the soldiers' use. When Pakenham's army was
defeated, people expected an immediate return to normal conditions.
Jackson, however, proposed to take no chances. Neither the sailing of
the British fleet nor the receipt of the news of peace from Admiral
Cochrane influenced him to relax his vigilance, and only after
official instructions came from Washington in the middle of March was
the ban lifted.

Meanwhile a violent quarrel had broken out between the commander and
the civil authorities, who naturally wished to resume their accustomed
functions. Finding that the Creoles were systematically evading
service by registering as French citizens, Jackson abruptly ordered
all such people from the city; and he was responsible for numerous
other arbitrary acts. Protests were lodged, and some people threatened
judicial proceedings. But they might have saved their breath. Jackson
was not the man to argue matters of the kind. A leading Creole who
published an especially pointed protest was clapped into prison, and
when the Federal district judge, Hall, issued a writ of _habeas
corpus_ in his behalf, Jackson had him also shut up.

As soon as he was liberated, the irate judge summoned Jackson into
court to show why he should not be held in contempt. Beyond a blanket
vindication of his acts, the General would not plead. "I will not
answer interrogatories," he declared. "I may have erred, but my
motives cannot be misinterpreted." The judge thereupon imposed a fine
of one thousand dollars, the only question being, he declared,
"whether the Law should bend to the General or the General to the
Law." Jackson accepted the sentence with equanimity, and to a group of
admirers who drew him in a carriage from the court room to one of the
leading coffeehouses, he expressed lofty sentiments on the obligation
of citizens of every rank to obey the laws and uphold the courts.
Twenty-nine years afterwards Congress voted reimbursement to the full
amount of the fine with interest.

For three weeks after the arrival of the treaty of peace Jackson
lingered at New Orleans, haggling by day with the contractors and
merchants whose cotto