270 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS then a matter of dispute whether Mobile belonged to Spain or to the United States. In August, Jackson occupied the town and made his head quarters there. With the consent of Spain the British used Florida as a base of operations and established themselves at Pensacola. Jackson wrote to Washington for permission to attack them there; but the government was loth to sanction an invasion of Spanish territory until the complicity of Spain with our enemy should be proved beyond cavil. The letter from Sec. Armstrong to this effect did not reach Jackson. The capture of Washington by the British prevented his receiv ing orders and left him to act upon his own respon sibility, a kind of situation from which he was never known to flinch. On September 14 the British advanced against Mobile ; but in their attack upon the outwork, Fort Bowyer, they met with a disastrous repulse. They retreated to Pensacola, whither Jackson followed them with 3,000 men. On November 7 he stormed the town. His next move would have been against Fort Barrancas, six miles distant at the mouth of the harbor. By capturing this post he would have entrapped the British fleet and might have forced it to surrender; but the enemy forestalled him by blowing up the fort and beating a precipitate re treat. By thus driving the British from Florida an act for which he was stupidly blamed by the
