In obedience to the direction of the House of Representatives,
expressed in their resolution of Friday last, I submit the
following statement:
I arrived from Europe at New Orleans in December, 1786, having
been invited to the country by an uncle of considerable wealth
and influence, who had been long resident in that city. Shortly
after my arrival, I was employed in the office of the Secretary
of the Government--this office was the depository of all State
papers. In 1787, General Wilkinson made his first visit to New
Orleans, and was introduced by my uncle to the Governor and
other officers of the Spanish Government.
In 1788, much sensation was excited by the report of his having
entered into some arrangements with the Government of Louisiana
to separate the Western country from the United States, and
this report acquired great credit upon his second visit to
New Orleans in 1789. About this time I saw a letter from the
General to a person in New Orleans, giving an account of
Colonel Connolly’s mission to him from the British Government
in Canada, and of proposals made to him on the part of that
Government, and mentioning his determination of adhering to his
connection with the Spaniards.
My intimacy with the officers of the Spanish Government and
my access to official information, disclosed to me shortly
afterwards some of the plans the General had proposed to the
Government for effecting the contemplated separation. The
general project was, the severance of the Western country
from the United States, and the establishment of a separate
Government in the alliance and under the protection of Spain.
In effecting this, Spain was to furnish money and arms, and
the minds of the Western people were to be seduced and brought
over to the project by liberal advantages resulting from it,
to be held out by Spain. The trade of the Mississippi was to be
rendered free, the port of New Orleans to be opened to them,
and a free commerce allowed in the productions of the new
Government with Spain and her West India Islands.
I remember about the same time to have seen a list of names of
citizens of the Western country which was in the handwriting of
the General, who were recommended for pensions, and the sums
were stated proper to be paid to each; and I then distinctly
understood that he and others were actually pensioners of the
Spanish Government.
I had no personal knowledge of money being paid to General
Wilkinson or to any agent for him, on account of his pension,
previously to the year 1793 or 1794. In one of these years, and
in which I cannot be certain, until I can consult my books, a
Mr. La Cassagne, who I understood was Postmaster at the Falls
of Ohio, came to New Orleans, and, as one of the association
with General Wilkinson, in the project of dismemberment,
received a sum of money, four thousand dollars of which, or
thereabout, were embarked by a special permission, free of
duty, on board a vessel which had been consigned to me, and
which sailed for Philadelphia, in which vessel Mr. La Cassagne
went passenger. At and prior to this period I had various
opportunities of seeing the projects submitted to the Spanish
Government, and of learning many of the details from the agents
employed to carry them into execution.
In 1794, two gentlemen of the names of Owens and Collins,
friends and agents of General Wilkinson, came to New Orleans.
To the first was intrusted, as I was particularly informed by
the officers of the Spanish Government, the sum of six thousand
dollars, to be delivered to General Wilkinson on account of his
own pension, and that of others. On his way, in returning to
Kentucky, Owens was murdered by his boat’s crew, and the money
it was understood was made away with by them. This occurrence
occasioned a considerable noise in Kentucky, and contributed,
with Mr. Power’s visits at a subsequent period, to awaken the
suspicion of General Wayne, who took measures to intercept
the correspondence of General Wilkinson with the Spanish
Government, which were not attended with success.
Collins, the co-agent with Owens, first attempted to fit out a
small vessel in the port of New Orleans, in order to proceed to
some port in the Atlantic States; but she was destroyed by the
hurricane of the month of August of 1794. He then fitted out a
small vessel in the Bayou St. John, and shipped in her at least
eleven thousand dollars, which he took round to Charleston.
This shipment was made under such peculiar circumstances
that it became known to many, and the destination of it was
afterwards fully disclosed to me by the officers of the Spanish
Government, by Collins, and by General Wilkinson himself, who
complained that Collins instead of sending him the money on his
arrival had employed it in some wild speculations to the West
Indies, by which he had lost a considerable sum, and that in
consequence of the mismanagement of his agents he had derived
but little advantage from the money paid on his account by the
Government.
Mr. Power was a Spanish subject, resident in Louisiana, till
the object of his visits to the Western country became known
to me in 1796, when he embarked on board the brig Gayoso, at
New Orleans for Philadelphia, in company with Judge Sebastian,
in which vessel, as she had been consigned to myself, I saw
embarked under a special permission four thousand dollars
or thereabout, which, I was informed, were for Sebastian’s
own account, as one of those concerned in the scheme of
dismemberment of the Western country.
Mr. Power, as he afterwards informed me, on his tour through
the Western country, saw General Wilkinson at Greenville,
and was the bearer of a letter to him for the Secretary of
the Government of Louisiana, dated the 7th or 8th March,
1796, advising that a sum of money had been sent to Don
Thomas Portell, commandant of New Madrid, to be delivered to
his order. This money Mr. Power delivered to Mr. Nolan, by
Wilkinson’s directions. What concerned Mr. Nolan’s agency
in this business I learned from himself, when he afterwards
visited New Orleans.
In 1797, Power was intrusted with another mission to Kentucky,
and had directions to propose certain plans to effect the
separation of the Western country from the United States.
These plans were proposed and rejected, as he often solemnly
assured me, through the means of a Mr. George Nicholas, to whom
among others they were communicated, who spurned the idea of
receiving foreign money. Power then proceeded to Detroit to see
General Wilkinson, and was sent back by him under guard to New
Madrid, from whence he returned to New Orleans. Power’s secret
instructions were known to me afterwards, and I am enabled to
state that the plan contemplated entirely failed.
At the period spoken of, and for some time afterwards, I was
resident in the Spanish territory, subject to the Spanish
laws, without an expectation of becoming a citizen of the
United States. My obligations were then to conceal, and not to
communicate to the Government of the United States the projects
and enterprises which I have mentioned of General Wilkinson and
the Spanish Government.
In the month of October, of 1798, I visited General Wilkinson
by his particular request at his camp at Loftus’ Heights,
where he had shortly before arrived. The General had heard
of remarks made by me on the subject of his pension, which
had rendered him uneasy, and he was desirous of making some
arrangements with me on the subject. I passed three days
and nights in the General’s tent. The chief subjects of our
conversation were, the views and enterprises of the Spanish
Government in relation to the United States, and speculations
as to the result of political affairs. In the course of our
conversation, he stated that there was still a balance of ten
thousand dollars due him by the Spanish Government, for which
he would gladly take in exchange Governor Gayoso’s plantation
near the Natchez, who might reimburse himself from the treasury
at New Orleans. I asked the General whether this sum was due
on the old business of the pension. He replied that it was,
and intimated a wish that I should propose to Governor Gayoso
a transfer of his plantation for the money due him from the
Spanish treasury. The whole affair had always been odious to
me, and I declined any agency in it. I acknowledged to him that
I had often spoken freely and publicly of his Spanish pension,
but told him I had communicated nothing to his Government on
the subject. I advised him to drop his Spanish connection.
He justified it heretofore from the peculiar situation of
Kentucky; the disadvantages the country labored under at the
period when he formed his connection with the Spaniards, the
doubtful and distracted state of the Union at that time, which
he represented as bound together by nothing better than a rope
of sand. And he assured me solemnly that he had terminated his
connections with the Spanish Government, and that they never
should be renewed. I gave the General to understand that as
the affair stood, I should not in future say any thing about
it. From that period until the present I have heard one report
only of the former connection being renewed, and that was in
1804, shortly after the General’s departure from New Orleans.
I had been absent for two or three months, and returned to the
city not long after General Wilkinson sailed from it. I was
informed by the late Mayor, that reports had reached the ears
of the Governor, of a sum of ten thousand dollars having been
received by the General of the Spanish Government, while he was
one of the Commissioners for taking possession of Louisiana.
He wished me to inquire into the truth of them, which I agreed
to do, on condition that I might be permitted to communicate
the suspicion to the General, if the fact alleged against him
could not be better verified. This was assented to. I made
this inquiry, and satisfied myself by an inspection of the
treasury-book for 1804, that the ten thousand dollars had not
been paid. I then communicated the circumstance to a friend of
the General, (Mr. Evan Jones,) with a request that he would
inform him of it. The report was revived at the last session
of Congress, by a letter from Colonel Ferdinand Claiborne,
of Natchez, to the Delegate of the Mississippi Territory. A
member of the House informed me that the money in question was
acknowledged by General Smith to have been received at the time
mentioned, but that it was in payment for tobacco. I knew that
no tobacco had been delivered, and waited on General Smith for
information as to the receipt of the money, who disavowed all
knowledge of it; and I took the opportunity of assuring him,
and as many others as mentioned the subject, that I believed it
to be false, and gave them my reasons for the opinion.
This summary necessarily omits many details tending to
corroborate and illustrate the facts and opinions I have
stated. No allusion has been had to the public explanations
of the transaction referred to, made by General Wilkinson
and his friends. So far as they are resolved into commercial
enterprises and speculations, I had the best opportunity of
being acquainted with them, as I was, during the time referred
to, the agent of the house who were consignees of the General
at New Orleans, and who had an interest in his shipments, and
whoso books are in my possession.