for either the territory or its people. On the morning of the 17th of
July the formal transfer took place. A procession was formed,
consisting of such American soldiers as were on the spot. A ship's
band briskly played _The Star Spangled Banner_ and the new Governor
rode proudly at the fore as the procession moved along Main Street to
the government house, where ex-Governor Callava with his staff was in
waiting. The Spanish flag was hauled down, the American was run up,
the keys were handed over, and the remaining members of the garrison
were sent off to the vessels which on the morrow were to bear them on
their way to Cuba. Only Callava and a few other officials and
merchants stayed behind to close up matters of public and private
business.

Jackson's governorship was brief and stormy. In the first place, he
had no taste for administrative routine, and he found no such
opportunity as he had hoped for to confer favors upon his friends. "I
am sure our stay here will not be long," wrote Mrs. Jackson to a
brother in early August. "This office does not suit my husband....
There never was a man more disappointed than he has been. He has not
the power to appoint one of his friends." In the second place, the new
Governor's status was wholly anomalous, since Congress had extended to
the territory only the revenue and anti-slave-trade laws, leaving
Jackson to exercise in other matters the rather vague powers of the
captain general of Cuba and of the Spanish governors of the Floridas.
And in the third place, before his first twenty-four hours were up,
the new executive fell into a desperate quarrel with his predecessor,
a man of sufficiently similar temperament to make the contest a source
of sport for the gods.

Jackson was prepared to believe the worst of any Spaniard, and his