WHEN Burr ceased to be Vice-President of the United States,
March 4, 1805, he had already made himself intimate with every element
of conspiracy that could be drawn within his reach. The list of his
connections might have startled Jefferson, if the President’s easy
optimism had not been proof to fears. In London, Burr’s friend Colonel
Williamson confided his plans to Pitt and Lord Melville. At Washington
the British minister, Merry, wrote to Lord Mulgrave in support of
Williamson’s negotiation. The creole deputies from New Orleans were
Burr’s friends, and Derbigny was acquainted with “certain projects” he
entertained. General Wilkinson, governor of the Louisiana Territory,
whose headquarters were at St. Louis, closely attached to Burr almost
from childhood, stood ready for any scheme that promised to gratify
inordinate ambition. James Brown, Secretary of the Territory, was
Burr’s creature. Judge Prevost, of the Superior Court at New Orleans,
was Burr’s stepson. Jonathan Dayton, whose term as senator ended the
same day with Burr’s vice-presidency, shared and perhaps suggested
the “projects.” John Smith, the senator from Ohio, was under the
influence of Burr and Dayton. John Adair of Kentucky was in Wilkinson’s
confidence. The Swartwouts in New York, with the “little band” who made
Burr their idol, stood ready to follow him wherever he might lead. In
South Carolina Joseph Allston, the husband of Theodosia Burr, might
be induced to aid his father-in-law; and Allston was supposed to be
the richest planter in the South, worth a million of dollars in slaves
and plantations. The task of uniting these influences and at a given
moment raising the standard of a new empire in the Mississippi Valley
seemed to an intriguer of Burr’s metal not only feasible, but certain
of success.
After the parting interview with Merry in March, 1805, when they
arranged terms to be asked of the British government, Burr went to
Philadelphia, and in April crossed the mountains to Pittsburg, on his
way to New Orleans. Wilkinson was to have joined him; but finding that
Wilkinson had been delayed, Burr went on alone. Floating down the Ohio,
his ark lashed to that of Matthew Lyon, he first stopped a few hours at
an island about two miles below Parkersburg, where an Irish gentleman
named Blennerhassett lived, and where he had spent a sum, for that day
considerable, in buildings and improvements. The owner was absent;
but Mrs. Blennerhassett was at home, and invited Burr to dinner. The
acquaintance thus begun proved useful to him. Passing to Cincinnati,
he became, May 11, 1805, a guest in the house of Senator Smith. Dayton
was already there; but Wilkinson arrived a few days later, after Burr
had gone on by land to Nashville. Wilkinson publicly talked much of
a canal around the Falls of the Ohio River, to explain the community
of interest which seemed to unite himself with Burr, Dayton, and
Senator Smith; but privately he wrote, May 28, to John Adair, soon to
be Breckenridge’s successor as senator from Kentucky: “I was to have
introduced my friend Burr to you; but in this I failed by accident. He
understands your merits, and reckons on you. Prepare to visit me, and I
will tell you all. We must have a peep at the unknown world beyond me.”
Meanwhile Burr reached Nashville in Tennessee, where he was received
with enthusiastic hospitality. Every one at or near the town seemed to
contend for the honor of best treating or serving him.[152] Dinners
were given, toasts were drunk; the newspapers were filled with his
doings. No one equalled Andrew Jackson in warmth of devotion to Colonel
Burr. At all times of his life Jackson felt sympathy with a duellist
who had killed his man; but if his support was enlisted for the
duellist who had killed Hamilton, his passions were excited in favor of
the man who should drive the Spaniards from America; and Burr announced
that this was to be the mission of his life. As major-general of the
Tennessee militia, Jackson looked forward to sharing this exploit.
After spending a week or more at Nashville, Burr descended in one of
General Jackson’s boats to the mouth of the Cumberland, where his ark
was waiting; and June 6 he joined General Wilkinson at Fort Massac,--a
military post on the north shore of the Ohio River, a few miles above
its junction with the Mississippi. The two men remained together at
Massac four days, and Burr wrote to his daughter, Mrs. Allston: “The
General and his officers fitted me out with an elegant barge,--sails,
colors, and ten oars,--with a sergeant and ten able, faithful hands.
Thus equipped, I left Massac on the 10th June.” Wilkinson supplied
him also with a letter of introduction to Daniel Clark, the richest
and most prominent American in New Orleans. Dated June 9, 1805, it
announced that the bearer would carry secrets. “To him I refer you for
many things improper to letter, and which he will not say to any other.”
While Burr went down the river to New Orleans, Wilkinson turned
northward to St. Louis, where he arrived July 2. He was in high spirits
and indiscreet. Two of his subordinate officers, Major Hunt and Major
Bruff, afterward told how he sounded them,--and Major Bruff’s evidence
left no doubt that Wilkinson shared in the ideas of Burr and Dayton;
that he looked forward to a period of anarchy and confusion in the
Eastern States, as the result of democracy; and that he intended to
set up a military empire in Louisiana. Already, June 24, he signed
Lieutenant Pike’s instructions to explore the headwaters of the
Arkansas River. Adair, certainly in the secret, believed the object
of this expedition to be the opening of a road to Santa Fé and to the
mines of Mexico.[153] Every recorded letter or expression of Wilkinson
during the spring and summer of 1805 showed that he was in the
confidence of Burr and Dayton; that he gave them active aid in their
scheme for severing the Union; and that they in their turn embraced his
project of Mexican conquest.
Burr reached New Orleans June 25, 1805, and remained a fortnight,
entertained by the enemies of Governor Claiborne and of the Spaniards.
Conspiracies were commonly most active and most dangerous when most
secret; and the mark of secrecy, almost wholly wanting to this
conspiracy in the Northern States, was never removed, by any public
inquiry or admission, from its doings at New Orleans. According to the
story afterward told by Wilkinson on the evidence of Lieutenant Spence,
Burr on his arrival in Louisiana became acquainted with the so-called
Mexican Association,--a body of some three hundred men, leagued
together for the emancipation of Mexico from Spanish rule.[154] Of this
league Daniel Clark afterward declared that he was not a member; but
if his safety as a merchant required him to keep aloof, his sympathies
were wholly with the Association. After Burr’s arrival, and under his
influence, the scheme of disunion was made a part of the Mexican plan;
and these projects soon became so well known in New Orleans as to reach
the ears of the Spanish agents and excite their suspicions, until Clark
two months later complained to Wilkinson that Burr’s indiscretion
was bringing them all into danger.[155] Clark’s letter was written
as though he were an innocent bystander annoyed at finding himself
included in an imaginary conspiracy against the Spanish government.
In truth it seemed also to be written as a warning to Burr against
trusting a certain “Minor of Natchez”:--
“Were I sufficiently intimate with Mr. Burr, and knew where
to direct a line to him, I should take the liberty of writing
to him. Perhaps, finding Minor in his way, he was endeavoring
to extract something from him,--he has amused himself at the
blockhead’s expense,--and then Minor has retailed the news
to his employers. Inquire of Mr. Burr about this and let me
know on my return [from Vera Cruz], which will be in three or
four months. The tale is a horrid one if well told. Kentucky,
Tennessee, the State of Ohio, the four territories on the
Mississippi and Ohio, with part of Georgia and Carolina, are to
be bribed with the plunder of the Spanish countries west of us
to separate from the Union.”
This letter, written by Clark, Sept. 7, 1805, showed that Burr’s plans
were notorious at New Orleans, and that his indiscretion greatly
annoyed his friends. Two years afterward, Wilkinson reminded Clark of
the letter.[156]
“You will recollect,” wrote Wilkinson, “you desired me to
write Burr on the subject, which I did, and also gave his
brother-in-law, Dr. Brown, an extract of your letter to transmit
him.”
Burr’s reply has been preserved:--
“Your letter of November,” he wrote to Wilkinson,[157] Jan.
6, 1806, “which came, I believe, through J. Smith, has been
received and answered. Your friend [Clark] suspects without
reason the person [Minor] named in his letter to you. I love
the society of that person; but surely I could never be guilty
of the folly of confiding to one of his levity anything which
I wished not to be repeated. Pray do not disturb yourself with
such nonsense.”
Daniel Clark and Wilkinson were therefore assured, not that the tale
was untrue, but that Burr had not confided to Minor, or “to one of his
levity” anything which Burr “wished not to be repeated.” Nevertheless
Clark, whose abilities were far greater than those of Burr, and whose
motives for secrecy were stronger, knew that Burr must have talked
with extreme indiscretion, for his plans had already come to the ears
of the Spanish agents in Louisiana. Many residents of New Orleans knew
of the scheme,--“many absurd and wild reports are circulated here,”
wrote Clark; and whether they shared it or not, they certainly did not
denounce it.
No plea of ignorance could avail any of Burr’s friends. His schemes
were no secret. As early as Aug. 4, 1805, more than a month before
Daniel Clark sent his warning to General Wilkinson, the British
minister was so much alarmed at the publicity already given to the
plot that he wrote to Lord Mulgrave a panic-stricken letter, evidently
supposing that the scheme was ruined by Burr’s indiscretion:[158]--
“He or some of his agents have either been indiscreet in their
communications, or have been betrayed by some person in whom
they considered that they had reason to confide; for the object
of his journey has now begun to be noticed in the public prints,
where it is said that a convention is to be called immediately
from the States bordering on the Ohio and Mississippi for the
purpose of forming a separate government. It is, however,
possible that the business may be so far advanced as, from the
nature of it, to render any further secrecy impossible.”
The French minister was hardly less well informed. Feb. 13, 1806,
Turreau wrote to his government,[159] mentioning Miranda’s departure,
and adding,--
“The project of effecting a separation between the Western and
Atlantic States marches abreast with this one. Burr, though
displeased at first by the arrival of Miranda, who might reduce
him to a secondary _rôle_, has set off again for the
South, after having had several conferences with the British
minister. It seems to me that the Government does not penetrate
Burr’s views, and that the difficult circumstances in which
it finds itself, and where it has placed itself, force it to
dissimulate. This division of the confederated States appears
to me inevitable, and perhaps less remote than is commonly
supposed; but would this event, which England seems to favor, be
really contrary to the interests of France? And, assuming it to
take place, should we not have a better chance to withdraw, if
not both confederations, at least one of them, from the yoke of
England?”
That Burr should have concealed from his principal allies--the creoles
of New Orleans--plans which he communicated so freely elsewhere,
was not to be imagined. Burr remained only about a fortnight at New
Orleans; then returned on horseback through Natchez to Nashville,
where he became again the guest of Andrew Jackson. He passed the month
of August in Tennessee and Kentucky; then struck into the wilderness
across the Indiana Territory to St. Louis in order to pass a week
more with General Wilkinson and Secretary Brown. He found Wilkinson
discouraged by the rebuffs he had met in attempting to seduce his
subordinate officers and the people of the territory into the scheme.
Although Wilkinson afterward swore solemnly that he had no part or
parcel in Burr’s disunion project, his own evidence proved that
the subject had been discussed between them, and that his fears of
failure had at the time of their meeting at St. Louis checked his
enthusiasm:[160]--
“Mr. Burr, speaking of the imbecility of the government, said
it would moulder to pieces, die a natural death,--or words to
that effect; adding that the people of the Western country were
ready to revolt. To this I recollect replying that if he had not
profited more by his journey in other respects, he had better
have remained at Washington or Philadelphia; for ‘surely,’ said
I, ‘my friend, no person was ever more mistaken. The Western
people disaffected to the government! They are bigoted to
Jefferson and democracy.’”
Wilkinson afterward claimed to have written at that time a letter to
the Secretary of the Navy warning him against Burr; but the letter
never reached its supposed address. He certainly gave to Burr a letter
of introduction to Governor Harrison, of the Indiana Territory,
which suggested decline of sympathy with the conspiracy; for it
urged Harrison to return the bearer as the Territorial delegate to
Congress,--a boon on which the Union “may much depend.”[161]
Burr reached St. Louis Sept. 11, 1805; he left it September 19, for
Vincennes and the East. Two months afterward he arrived at Washington
and hurried to the British legation. His friend Dayton, who had been
detained by a long illness in the West, arrived and made his report to
Merry only two days before.
The conspiracy counted on the aid of Great Britain, which was to be the
pivot of the scheme; but Burr’s hopes were blasted by learning from
Merry that no answer had been received from the British government
in reply to the request for money and ships. Merry explained that an
accident had happened to the packet-boat, but both had reason to know
that hope of aid from the British government had vanished.
“These disappointments gave him, he [Burr] said,[162] the
deepest concern, because his journey through the Western
country and Louisiana as far as New Orleans, as well as through
a part of West Florida, had been attended with so much more
success than he had even looked for, that everything was in
fact completely prepared in every quarter for the execution of
his plan; and because he had therefore been induced to enter
into an engagement with his associates and friends to return
to them in the month of March next, in order to commence the
operations. He had been encouraged, he said, to go such lengths
by the communications he had received from Colonel Williamson,
which gave him some room to hope and expect that his Majesty’s
government were disposed to afford him their assistance.... He
was sensible that no complete understanding on the subject could
well take place without verbal communication; but he flattered
himself that enough might be explained in this way to give a
commencement to the business, and that any ulterior arrangements
might safely be left till the personal interviews he should
have with the persons properly authorized for the purpose, whom
he recommended to be sent with the ships of war, which it was
necessary should cruise off the mouth of the Mississippi at the
latest by the 10th of April next, and to continue there until
the commanding officer should receive information from him or
from Mr. Daniel Clark of the country having declared itself
independent. He wished the naval force in question to consist of
two or three ships of the line, the same number of frigates, and
a proportionable number of smaller vessels.”
The British minister was curious to know precisely the result of the
Western tour; but on this subject Burr talked vaguely, and, contrary to
his usual custom, mentioned few names.
“Throughout the Western country persons of the greatest property
and influence had engaged themselves to contribute very
largely toward the expense of the enterprise; at New Orleans
he represented the inhabitants to be so firmly resolved upon
separating themselves from their union with the United States,
and every way to be so completely prepared, that he was sure the
revolution there would be accomplished without a drop of blood
being shed, the American force in that country (should it not,
as he had good reason to believe, enlist with him) not being
sufficiently strong to make any opposition. It was accordingly
there that the revolution would commence, at the end of April or
the beginning of May, provided his Majesty’s government should
consent to lend their assistance toward it, and the answer,
together with the pecuniary aid which would be wanted, arrived
in time to enable him to set out the beginning of March.”
From Pitt, besides the naval force, Burr wanted a credit for one
hundred and ten thousand pounds, to be given in the names of John
Barclay of Philadelphia, and Daniel Clark of New Orleans. In his report
to Merry on the results of the Western tour he said no more than he
had a right to say, without violent exaggeration. He barely hinted at
complicity on the part of Wilkinson, Smith, Adair, and Andrew Jackson.
He gave Merry clearly to understand that the heart of his plot was not
in the Ohio Valley, but at New Orleans. He laid little weight on the
action of Kentucky or Tennessee; with him, the point of control was
among the creoles.
“Mr. Burr stated to me--what I have reason to believe to be true
from the information I have received from other quarters--that
when he reached Louisiana he found the inhabitants so impatient
under the American government that they had actually prepared
a representation of their grievances, and that it was in
agitation to send deputies with it to Paris. The hope, however,
of becoming completely independent, and of forming a much more
beneficial connection with Great Britain, having been pointed
out to them, and this having already prevailed among many of the
principal people who are become his associates, they had found
means to obtain a suspension of the plan of having recourse to
France.”
Burr impressed Merry with the idea that West Florida was also to be
taken within the scope of his scheme. “The overture which had been
made to him at New Orleans from a person of the greatest influence in
East and West Florida, and the information he had otherwise acquired
respecting the state of those countries,” were among the reasons which
he pressed upon the British government as motives for aiding the
conspiracy with a naval force. England was then at war with Spain.
One more argument was pressed by Burr, for no one knew better than he
the use to which New England might be put.
“He observed--what I readily conceive may happen--that when
once Louisiana and the Western country became independent, the
Eastern States will separate themselves immediately from the
Southern; and that thus the immense power which is now risen up
with so much rapidity in the western hemisphere will, by such a
division, be rendered at once informidable.”
Whatever may have been Merry’s sympathies or wishes, he could do no
more than report Burr’s conversation to Lord Mulgrave with as much
approval as he dared give it. Meanwhile Burr was thrown into extreme
embarrassment by the silence of Mulgrave. Burr’s report showed that
the creoles in New Orleans, with Daniel Clark as their financial ally,
were induced to countenance the conspiracy only because they believed
it to be supported by England. Without that support, Burr could not
depend on creole assistance. Had he been wise, he would have waited;
and perhaps he might in the end have brought the British government
to accept his terms. If Pitt intended to plunder American commerce and
to kidnap American citizens, he must be prepared to do more; and Burr
might calculate on seeing the British Tories placed by their own acts
in a position where they could not afford to neglect his offers.
Burr stayed a week in Washington; and although the object of his
Western journey was so notorious that even the newspapers talked about
it, his reception at the White House and at the departments was as
cordial as usual. About Dec. 1, 1805, he returned to Philadelphia,
where he began the effort to raise from new sources the money which
till then he hoped to provide by drafts on the British treasury. The
conspirators were driven to extraordinary shifts. Burr undertook the
task of drawing men like Blennerhassett into his toils, and induced
Dayton to try an experiment, resembling the plot of a comic opera
rather than the seriousness of historical drama.
Dec. 5, 1805, as Miranda was leaving New York to entrap Madison, three
days after Burr had returned to Philadelphia from his unsatisfactory
interview with Merry, the Marquis of Casa Yrujo, as yet innocent of
conspiracy, and even flattering himself upon having restored friendly
relations with the Government, received a secret visit at his house in
Philadelphia from Jonathan Dayton, whom he had known at Washington as
the Federalist senator from New Jersey. Dayton, in a mysterious manner,
gave him to understand that the Spanish government would do well to
pay thirty or forty thousand dollars for certain secrets; and finding
the marquis disposed to listen, Dayton recited a curious tale.
“This secret,” said he,[163] “is known at the present moment
to only three persons in this country. I am one of them; and
I will tell you that toward the end of the last session and
near the end of last March Colonel Burr had various very secret
conferences with the British minister, to whom he proposed a
plan not only for taking the Floridas, but also for effecting
the separation and independence of the Western States,--a part
of this plan being that the Floridas should be associated in
this new federative republic; England to receive as the price of
her services a decisive preference in matters of commerce and
navigation, and to secure these advantages by means of a treaty
to be made as soon as she should recognize this new republic.
This plan obtained the approval of the British minister, who
sent it and recommended it to his Court. Meanwhile Colonel
Burr has been in New Orleans, in the Mississippi Territory,
in the States of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, to sound and
prepare their minds for this revolution. In all these States
he has found the most favorable disposition, not only for this
emancipation, which the Western States evidently desire, but
also for making an expedition against the kingdom of Mexico.
This is an idea that occurred to us after sending the first plan
to London; and having given greater extension to the project,
Colonel Burr sent to London a despatch with his new ideas to
Colonel Williamson,--an English officer who has been many years
in this country, and whose return he expects within a month
or six weeks. The first project was very well received by the
English Cabinet, and more particularly by Mr. Dundas, or Lord
Melville, who was the person charged with this correspondence;
but as he had reason to fear dismission from office for causes
well known through the debates of Parliament, this plan has
suffered some delay; but Mr. Pitt has again turned his attention
to it.”
On the strength of this information Dayton seriously proposed to
terrify Yrujo and Don Carlos IV. into paying the expenses of Burr’s
expedition. An idea so fantastic could have sprung from no mind except
Burr’s; but, fantastic as it was, he pursued it obstinately, although
by doing so he betrayed to Spain the followers whom he was striving to
inveigle into an imaginary assault on Spanish empire. Dayton asserted
that the revolution would begin on the appearance of the British
squadron off the coast of West Florida in February or March, 1806; that
to make this revolution more popular, after the Floridas were taken,
the expedition against Mexico would be attempted; that they feared no
opposition from a government so weak as the Federal; that the United
States troops were all in the West, and that Colonel Burr had caused
them to be sounded in regard to the expedition against Mexico; that
they were all ready to follow him, and he did not doubt that there
existed in them the same disposition to sustain the rights of the
Western States, in which they lived, against the impotent forces of
the Federal government; that Mexico was to be assailed, in co-operation
with the English fleet, by troops to be disembarked at Tampico or
thereabout; and that the revolutionized Spanish possessions would be
made republics.
To reveal such a plan was to destroy its chance of success; and in
thus presenting himself before the Spanish minister Dayton appeared
as a traitor not only to the Union, but also to the conspirators
with whom he was engaged. Such a character was not likely to create
confidence. Yrujo instantly saw that Burr stood behind Dayton; that
England could not have encouraged the conspiracy, for, had she done
so, the conspirators would never come to beg a few thousand dollars
from Spain; and that the Mexican scheme, if it ever existed, must
have been already abandoned, or it would not have been revealed.
Dismissing the ex-senator with civility and a promise to talk with
him further, Yrujo wrote to his Government a long account of the
interview. He pointed at once to Clark as the person through whom
Burr drew his information about Mexico. Yrujo was perplexed only by
Jefferson’s apparent blindness to the doings in the West. The marquis
was a Spaniard; and for twenty years the people of the United States
had talked of Spaniards with contempt. Even Jefferson freely assumed
their faithlessness and paltriness; but surely if Yrujo had cared to
concentrate in a few words his opinion of American political character,
no American could have wondered if these few words, like a flash of
lightning, left no living thing where they struck.
“I am sure,” he wrote to Cevallos, “that the Administration will
not let itself be deceived by Colonel Burr’s wiles; but I know
that the President, although penetrating and detesting as well
as fearing him, and for this reason, not only invites him to
his table, but only about five days ago had a secret conference
with him which lasted more than two hours, and in which I am
confident there was as little good faith on the one side as
there was on the other.”
The assertion could not be denied. The White House rarely saw, within a
few days’ interval, two less creditable guests than Aaron Burr, fresh
from confiding his plans to Anthony Merry, and Francesco de Miranda,
openly engaged in a military attack from the port of New York upon the
dominions of Spain.
Yrujo was at first inclined to distrust Dayton; but Miranda’s
undertaking, which crossed Burr’s plans, gave to the ex-senator the
means of proving his good faith. Indeed, in a few days more, Dayton
made a clean breast, admitting that England had disappointed Burr’s
expectations, and that Burr had authorized the offer to sell his
services to Spain.
“I have had with him two very long conferences,” wrote Yrujo
three weeks later,[164] “in which he has told me that Colonel
Burr will not treat with Miranda, whom he considers imprudent,
and wanting in many qualities necessary for an undertaking of
such magnitude as he has on hand. Miranda has returned to
New York, much piqued at finding that Colonel Burr was very
determined to have nothing to do with him. He also told me that
Colonel Williamson, who was sent to London with the plan for the
British ministry, not finding Mr. Pitt so warm as Lord Melville
for the project of raising the Western States, had turned to
plans in that capital, and showed, by the want of exactness in
his correspondence, that he was not following up the object with
the same zeal as at first he undertook it; that in consequence
they were disposed to despatch to London a New York gentleman
named Warton, well known for his intimacy with Burr, but that
on the verge of his departure another plan suggested itself to
Burr, which he seems rather inclined to execute. This plan,
excepting the attack on the Floridas, has the same object, which
he, as well as his chief friends, hope may be put in execution
even without foreign aid. For one who does not know the country,
its constitution, and, above all, certain localities, this
plan would appear almost insane; but I confess, for my part,
that in view of all the circumstances it seems to me easy
to execute, although it will irritate the Atlantic States,
especially those called central,--that is, Virginia, Maryland,
Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York. It is beyond
question that there exists in this country an infinite number of
adventurers, without property, full of ambition, and ready to
unite at once under the standard of a revolution which promises
to better their lot. Equally certain is it that Burr and his
friends, without discovering their true object, have succeeded
in getting the good-will of these men, and inspiring the
greatest confidence among them in favor of Burr.”
The “almost insane” plan which Dayton unfolded to the Spanish minister
was nothing less than to introduce by degrees into the city of
Washington a certain number of men in disguise, well armed, who, at a
signal from Burr, were to seize the President, Vice-President, and the
President of the Senate,--the substitute always named at the beginning
of each session, in case of the death, illness, or absence of the two
first. Having thus secured the heads of government, the conspirators
were to seize the public money deposited in the Washington and
Georgetown banks, and to take possession of the arsenal on the Eastern
Branch. Burr hoped by this blow to delay or paralyze opposition,
and perhaps to negotiate with the individual States an arrangement
favorable to himself; but in the more probable case that he could not
maintain himself at Washington, he would burn all the national vessels
at the Navy Yard, except the two or three which were ready for service,
and embarking on these with his followers and the treasure, he would
sail for New Orleans and proclaim the emancipation of Louisiana and the
Western States.
Wild as this scheme was, it occupied Burr’s mind for the rest of the
winter, and he made many efforts to draw discontented officers of the
government into it. He sounded Commodore Truxton, without revealing
his whole object; but to William Eaton, the hero of Derne, he opened
himself with as much confidence as to Merry and Yrujo. Eaton was at
Washington in January and February, 1806, sore at the manner in which
his claims were treated by Congress, and extravagant in ideas of
his own importance. To him Burr laid open the whole secret, even in
regard to the plan for attacking Washington. The story was the same
which had been told to Merry and Yrujo.[165] He spoke of Wilkinson as
his second in command; of his son-in-law, Allston, as engaged in the
enterprise; and of New Orleans as the capital of his Western empire,
whence an expedition would be sent for the conquest of Mexico. The
line of demarcation was to be the Alleghany Mountains; and although
he expressed some doubts about Ohio, he declared himself certain of
Kentucky and Tennessee.
“If he could gain over the marine corps and secure to his
interests the naval commanders Truxton, Preble, Decatur, and
others, he would turn Congress neck and heels out of doors,
assassinate the President (or what amounted to that), and
declare himself the protector of an energetic government.”
The scheme of attacking Washington was merely an episode due to Burr’s
despair of British or Spanish aid. Burr was reduced to many devices
in order to keep his conspiracy alive. December 12, immediately after
the disappointing interview with Merry, and Dayton’s first advance to
Casa Yrujo, Burr wrote to Wilkinson a letter evidently intended to
conceal his diplomatic disaster and to deceive his friend. He said that
there would be no war with Spain, and foretold the peaceful course
of Government.[166] “In case of such warfare, Lee would have been
commander-in-chief. Truth, I assure you. He must you know come from
Virginia.” As to the conspiracy, he reserved it for a few short lines,
intelligible enough to those who knew that New Orleans was to declare
its independence on the arrival of a British squadron in February, and
that the revolutionary government would at once send a delegation to
Natchez or St. Louis to make a formal tender of military command to
General Wilkinson.
“On the subject of a certain speculation it is not deemed
material to write till the whole can be communicated. The
circumstance referred to in a letter from Ohio remains in
suspense. The auspices, however, are favorable, and it is
believed that Wilkinson will give audience to a delegation,
composed of Adair and Dayton, in February.”
Meanwhile the Government asked no questions. Denunciation of Burr and
Wilkinson was dangerous; it was tried again and again with disastrous
results. Major Bruff, at St. Louis, who suspected the truth, dared not
bring such a charge against his superior officer:[167] but a certain
Judge Easton, to whom Burr confided at St. Louis, ventured to write
a letter to a senator of the United States charging Wilkinson with
being concerned in Miranda’s expedition; and was told in reply that the
letter was burned, and that the writer should mind his own business,
and take care how he meddled with men high in power and office. So
thick an atmosphere of intrigue, especially in Spanish matters, was
supposed to pervade the White House; men’s minds were so befogged
with public messages about a Spanish war and secret messages about
peace, with private encouragement to Miranda and public punishment of
Miranda’s friends, with John Randolph’s furious charges of duplicity
and Madison’s helpless silence under these charges,--that until the
President himself should say the word, Burr, Wilkinson, Dayton, and
their associates were safe, and might hatch treason in the face of all
the world.
President Jefferson had already too many feuds on his hands, and Burr
had still too many friends, to warrant rousing fresh reprisals at a
time when the difficulties of the Administration were extreme. The
President continued to countenance Burr in public, alleging in private
that the people could be trusted to defeat his schemes. Doubtless the
people could be trusted for that purpose, but they had instituted a
government in order to provide themselves with proper machinery for
such emergencies, and the President alone could set it in action.
General Eaton made an attempt to put the President on his guard. He
first consulted two leading Federalist Congressmen,--John Cotton Smith
and Samuel Dana,--who advised him to hold his tongue, for his solitary
word would not avail against the weight of Burr’s character.[168]
Nevertheless, in March, 1806, he called at the White House and saw the
President.
“After a desultory conversation, in which I aimed to draw
his attention to the West, I took the liberty of suggesting
to the President that I thought Colonel Burr ought to be
removed from the country, because I considered him dangerous
in it. The President asked where he should send him. I said
to England or Madrid.... The President, without any positive
expression, in such a matter of delicacy, seemed to think the
trust too important, and expressed something like a doubt about
the integrity of Mr. Burr. I frankly told the President that
perhaps no person had stronger grounds to suspect that integrity
than I had; but that I believed his pride of ambition had so
predominated over his other passions that when placed on an
eminence and put on his honor, a respect to himself would secure
his fidelity. I perceived that the subject was disagreeable to
the President; and to bring him to my point in the shortest
mode, and in a manner which would point to the danger, I said to
him, if Colonel Burr was not disposed of, we should in eighteen
months have an insurrection, if not a revolution, on the
waters of the Mississippi. The President said he had too much
confidence in the information, the integrity, and attachment
of the people of that country to the Union, to admit any
apprehensions of that kind.”
If the President had confidence in the people of New Orleans, he had
not shown it in framing a form of government for them; and if he
admitted no apprehensions in March, 1806, he admitted many before the
year closed. In truth, he deceived himself. That he was afraid of Burr
and of the sympathy which Burr’s career had excited, was the belief of
Burr himself, who responded to Jefferson’s caution by a contempt so
impudent as to seem even then almost incredible. Believing that the
President dared not touch him, Burr never cared to throw even a veil
over his treason. He used the President’s name and the names of his
Cabinet officers as freely as though he were President himself; and no
one contradicted or disavowed him. So matters remained at Washington
down to the close of the session.
“I detailed,” said Eaton,[169] “the whole projects of Mr.
Burr to certain members of Congress. They believed Colonel
Burr capable of anything, and agreed that the fellow ought to
be hanged, but thought his projects too chimerical, and his
circumstances too desperate, to give the subject the merit of
serious consideration.”