46 
by General Jackson. The English blew up also a part of Fort 
Barrancas at the same time, but the Spaniards have reinstated it, 
although on a smaller scale; thus it remains at present. 
The cannon are of brass, English and Spanish. Among the 
latter I observed two very fine twenty-four pounders, cast in 
Seville. Nothing can be more unhandy than the Spanish gun- 
carriages, they have wheels, which at the outside measure four 
feet in diameter. 
In the gorge of the works, there is a large bomb-proof casemate, 
and in the yard a furnace for red-hot shot. The whole of the 
work is built of sand, therefore the wall outside, and the parapet 
inside, are covered with upright planks, and the cheeks of the 
embrazures in the same manner. The Spanish cannon, also 
mounted on the clumsiest carriages, are placed in battery. The 
fort was temporarily given up to the marines, who employed the 
casemates and block houses for magazines, till the requisite pre¬ 
parations could be made in the navy-yard. At that period, the 
fort will be dismantled, and in its place a respectable fortress 
will be erected to defend this important point. 
It is of the highest consequence to the United States, to have 
an extensive maritime and military position on the Mexican 
gulf, on account of the increasing power of the new South Ame¬ 
rican Republics. Nevertheless, Pensacola can only be of se¬ 
condary ability to fill such a station, since the sand bank lying 
in the mouth of the bay, has only twenty-two feet upon it at 
high water; and necessarily, is too shallow for ships of the line, 
or even American frigates of the first class. Besides, upon the 
whole coast of the Gulf of Mexico, there is but one single bay, 
(and this is situated southward of La Vera Cruz,) in which armed 
ships of the line can pass in and out. The pieces of ordnance 
placed upon the walls, as well as Some forty lying upon the beach, 
half covered with sand, of old Spanish and English cannon, are, 
as is said, perfectly unserviceable. 
Outside of the fort, about two hundred paces distant from it, 
along the sea-coast, stands a light house built of brick, about 
eighty feet high, in which twenty lamps in divisions of five, 
constantly turn upon an axis in a horizontal movement during 
the night. They are set in motion by clock-work, and were pre¬ 
pared in Roxbury, near Boston. I saw the model in the patent 
office at Washington. The lamps are all furnished with plated 
reflectors, and are fed with spermaceti oil. The land about the 
fort is for the most part sandy, and produces only pines natural¬ 
ly, these however have been rooted out, and dwarf oaks and 
palmettoes have since sprouted out. 
I have mentioned General Jackson above, and surmised that 
he had driven the English out of Pensacola. I add to this re- 
