NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 12, 1796.
In answer, sir, to your private letter of the 10th of last
month, I will acknowledge to you that I was under the belief
that the Fort of St. Ferdinand was badly constructed, but not
to the degree that you point out to me. You must, however,
without augmenting the expenses which its evacuation would
render useless, put it in a state to maintain yourself there
until I receive new instructions from the Court. Should the
Court think proper, as may very well happen, not to evacuate
our posts on the Mississippi, I will despatch a courier to you
in all haste, that you may change the situation of the fort,
which ought to be done with all diligence, and so as that it be
again sufficiently intrenched to prevent its being surprised or
attacked before it is in a state of defence; for this purpose
I will send immediate and secret orders to New Madrid and to
St. Genevieve, that carpenters, masons, &c., should instantly
be sent to you, and you may also count on a reinforcement of
troops, which I will send to you by the galley Philapa, which I
am causing to be rebuilt without noise; all these dispositions,
I repeat to you, ought to be prompt and secret. I expect the
answer of the Court in ----.
If His Majesty, on the contrary, should persist in it that the
evacuation of the forts must take place, it will be done in the
most simple mode, towards the commencement of January. In the
mean time you must prepare the minds of the Chickasaws, and
of the inhabitants of Kentucky and Tennessee, for one or the
other of these events. You ought to make the latter understand
that their natural interest leading them to separate at some
day (_un jour_) from the Atlantic States, the occupation of
our posts on the Mississippi by the troops of the latter could
not but be disastrous to them, since they would cut off all
communication between them and us, from whom alone they could,
in that case, hope to receive assistance.
Extract of a letter from Daniel Clark to the Secretary of
State, dated
NEW ORLEANS, March 8, 1803.
As a proof that expectations of assistance from ourselves
against our own Government have been always relied on by the
Spaniards, and that they have constantly looked to a division
of our Western States from the General Government, I now
forward you an order to receive from Washington Morton, Esq.,
of New York, a sealed packet which I left in his possession
when I set out for Europe, and which I then mentioned I
would show you at my return, not thinking, at that time,
that circumstances would occur so soon as to render the
disclosure a measure of immediate necessity. Among other
papers of less importance in this packet, is a small part of
the correspondence of the Baron de Carondelet with the officer
commanding Fort St. Ferdinand, at the Chickasaw Bluffs, in
which he suffers his plans and views to be clearly perceived,
and which were solely aimed at our destruction; the remainder
are, as well as I recollect, copies of talks and letters to and
from the Chickasaw Indians; and, by the Baron de Carondelet’s
letter to the officer, you will perceive that the fact I
advised you respecting the annual pension of five hundred
dollars to Uguluycabé cannot be disputed.
Should you think these documents of sufficient importance to
require my presence in Washington to elucidate any part of
them, I shall immediately sacrifice all private business of my
own, and hasten there; and, in the mean time, will endeavor
to collect, from undoubted sources, such other information
relative to this subject as may be acceptable.
Although for four or five years past I had a perfect conviction
that the intrigues of the Spaniards with the Western country
were not for the time dangerous, on account of the incapacity
of the Governors of this province, and their want of pecuniary
means, yet, fearful of what might happen in future, should
more enlightened and ambitious chiefs preside over it, I could
not last year resist the temptation of hinting my suspicions
of what had been formerly done in this way to the President
at an interview with which he honored me, and I even went so
far as to assert that a person supposed to be an agent from
the State of Kentucky had been here in the end of 1795 and
beginning of 1796, to negotiate on the part of that State,
independent of the General Government, for the navigation of
the Mississippi, before the result of the Treaty of St. Lorenzo
was known, wishing that this hint might induce the President,
to cause inquiry to be made into the circumstance, which he
could easily find the means of investigating; but as he made
no other inquiry of me respecting it than merely in what year
the thing happened, it struck me that he must have had other
information on the subject, and that he thought it needless
to hear any thing more about it. By great accident I have
lately learned something which induces me to suppose that any
information he may have received respecting the measure alluded
to has been incorrect, and given with the view of misleading
him, and I request you will mention the subject anew to him,
that you may know how far I am right in my suspicions. The
information I possessed on the subject, could not, from the way
in which it was obtained, be accompanied with what would be
proof to convict the person concerned, or I should have openly
accused him in the face of the world; but to me it amounts to a
moral certainty of his guilt, and my conduct to him showed, on
all occasions, how much I detested his object and his person.
The same want of proof positive, sufficient to convict him,
prevents me at present from naming him; but if inquiry is
diligently made about the influential character from Kentucky,
who at that period was so long in Natchez, and afterwards here,
what his business was, and what was the idea entertained of
him, enough will doubtless be discovered to put our Government
on its guard against him and others of his stamp, and against
all foreign machinations in that quarter in future.
Communicated to the House, April 25, 1808, by Daniel Clark.
Pursuant to the resolution of the House, calling on me for
testimony relative to General Wilkinson’s receipt of money
from the Spaniards, I now lay before it some original papers,
corroborating the statement which I have already given:
No. 1. The first is the translation of a letter, in Spanish,
from Thomas Power to D. Thomas Portell, dated at New Madrid,
June 27, 1796, and containing the reasons why it was proper
for Portell to deliver to Power, without an order in writing
from General Wilkinson, a sum of money which had been placed
for that purpose in Portell’s hands by the Spanish Government
of New Orleans. The original letter is subjoined in the
handwriting of Mr. Power, with which I am acquainted.
This letter explains the deposition of Derbigny, and also makes
mention of the letter in cipher from General Wilkinson to
Gayoso, then Governor of Natchez, of which a translation, in
the handwriting of Gayoso, has heretofore been laid before the
House. It may be proper to add that I am well acquainted with
the handwriting of Gayoso, in which the translation is written,
and that he has been dead more than eight years.
No. 2. A translation of Portell’s answer to the foregoing,
dated Madrid, on the same day, June 27, 1796. The original
is subjoined in the handwriting of Portell, with which I am
acquainted.
The object of this correspondence seems to have been to furnish
to Portell the means of explaining to his superiors his motives
for delivering the money without a written order.
Nos. 3 and 4 are two original papers in the handwriting of
Philip Nolan, with which I am well acquainted. Nolan was the
confidential agent of Gen. Wilkinson in 1796, and has been dead
several years.
These two papers are stated by Mr. Power to be secret
instructions given to him by General Wilkinson, after the
latter received money from Portell, mentioned in Nos. 1 and
2. The instructions, according to Mr. Power’s statement, were
given in the handwriting of Nolan, as a measure of precaution
against the danger of detection. The six hundred and forty
dollars, of which they make mention, are stated by Mr. Power to
be a part of the sum received, for Wilkinson, of Portell, which
Power, after his arrival in Kentucky, was obliged to use for
the expenses of his journey.
No. 5. Is the translation of a letter to the Baron de
Carondelet from Mr. Power, dated at New Orleans, May 9, 1797,
after his return from Kentucky. The original letter in Spanish
is subjoined. It is in Mr. Power’s handwriting, with which I am
acquainted. It explains the affair of the six hundred and forty
dollars, mentioned in the secret instructions, Nos. 3 and 4,
and refers to and quotes those instructions as the instructions
of General Wilkinson.
No. 6. Is the translation of the Baron de Carondelet’s
answer to this letter. The answer is in Spanish, and in the
handwriting of Don Andres Armesto, Secretary to the Government,
which I know. It is signed by the Baron de Carondelet, with
whose signature I am acquainted.