256 ANDREW JACKSON 



praised by his friends as vigorous, while his enemies 

 stigmatized them as high-handed. In one instance 

 his conduct was certainly open to question. At St. 

 Mark's his troops captured an aged Scotch trader and 

 friend of the Indians, named Alexander Arbuthnot; 

 near Suwanee, some time afterward, they seized Rob- 

 ert Ambrister, a young English lieutenant of marines, 

 nephew of the governor of New Providence. Jackson 

 believed that these men had incited the Indians to 

 make war upon the United States and were now en- 

 gaged in aiding and abetting them in their hostilities. 

 They were tried by a court-martial at St. Mark's. On 

 evidence which surely does not to-day seem fully con- 

 clusive, Arbuthnot was found guilty and sentenced to 

 be hanged. Appearances were more strongly against 

 Ambrister. He did not make it clear what his busi- 

 ness was in Florida, and threw himself upon the mercy 

 of the court, which at first condemned him to be shot, 

 but on further consideration commuted the sentence to 

 fifty lashes and a year's imprisonment. Jackson arbi- 

 trarily revived the first sentence, and Ambrister was 

 accordingly shot. A few minutes afterward Arbuth- 

 not was hanged from the yard-arm of his own ship, 

 declaring with his last breath that his country would 

 avenge him. In this affair Jackson unquestionably 

 acted from a stern sense of duty ; as he himself said, 

 " My God would not have smiled on me had I pun- 

 ished only the poor, ignorant savages, and spared the 

 white men who set them on." Here, as on some other 

 occasions, however, when under the influence of strong 

 feeling, it may be doubted if he was to the full extent 

 capable of estimating evidence. It is, however, very 

 probable that the men were guilty. 



