General Jackson at New Orleans_ 79

_The Burghers Prepare to Defend their City_ 95

_Richelieu Surveying the Works at Rochelle_ 103

_The Parting between King Richard II. and Queen Isabella_ 117

_Martin Preaching to the People on the Duty of Fighting_ 125

"_Just at the Moment when Matters were at their Worst, he
Rode up_" 137

_Capture of the Dutch fleet by the Soldiers of the French
Republic_ 149

_Washington as a Surveyor_ 157

"_She Went Boldly into his Tent_" 171

"_'To the End of the Twelfth Book of the AEneid,' answered
the 'Idle' Boy in Triumph_" 189

THE STORY OF THE NEGRO FORT.

During the war of 1812-14, between Great Britain and the United States,
the weak Spanish Governor of Florida--for Florida was then Spanish
territory--permitted the British to make Pensacola their base of
operations against us. This was a gross outrage, as we were at peace
with Spain at the time, and General Jackson, acting on his own
responsibility, invaded Florida in retaliation.

Among the British at that time was an eccentric Irish officer, Colonel
Edward Nichols, who enlisted and tried to make soldiers of a large
number of the Seminole Indians. In 1815, after the war was over, Colonel
Nichols again visited the Seminoles, who were disposed to be hostile to
the United States, as Colonel Nichols himself was, and made an
astonishing treaty with them, in which an alliance, offensive and
defensive, between Great Britain and the Seminoles, was agreed upon. We
had made peace with Great Britain a few months before, and yet this
ridiculous Irish colonel signed a treaty binding Great Britain to fight
us whenever the Seminoles in the Spanish territory of Florida should see
fit to make a war! If this extraordinary performance had been all, it
would not have mattered so much, for the British government refused to
ratify the treaty; but it was not all. Colonel Nichols, as if determined
to give us as much trouble as he could, built a strong fortress on the
Appalachicola River, and gave it to his friends the Seminoles, naming it
"The British Post on the Appalachicola," where the Britis