CHAPTER berland. Some of the troops at Fort Massac had been XIX. ordered to New Orleans, and, by Wilkinson's influence, 1805. Burr was provided with a barge belonging to one of the officers, and manned with a crew of soldiers, and in this good style he set off for that city. Wilkinson also furnished him with letters of introduction; among others, one to Daniel Clark, an old resident of that Territory, Irish by birth, with whom, and formerly with his uncle of the same name, to whose property the younger Clark had succeeded, Wilkinson had been acquainted ever since his early trading speculations from Kentucky, prior to the adoption of the Federal Constitution. June 25. Burr found the Territory of Orleans in a state of great excitement, such as might well furnish encouragement to his projects. Governor Claiborne was exceedingly unpopular with a part of the inhabitants, of whom Clark was a leader. The introduction of the English forms of law proceedings, and the very slight participation in the administration of affairs allowed to the inhabitants for as yet the legislators as well as the governor were all appointed by the president-had occasioned great discontents. Among the French Creoles and the old settlers of British birth, attachment to the American connection. was not likely to be a very strong sentiment; while even the new American immigrants were divided and distracted by very bitter feuds. After a short stay at New Orleans, Burr reascended to Natchez in the Mississippi Territory, whence he trav eled by land, along the road or bridle-path, through the Indian Territory, four hundred and fifty miles to Nashville, where he was again entertained for a week by Aug. 6. General Jackson, "once a lawyer," so he remarked in the journal which he kept for the entertainment of his daughter, "afterward a judge, and now a planter—a man XIX. of intelligence, and one of those prompt, frank, ardent CHAPTER souls whom I love to meet." Having been again complimented with a public dinner at Nashville, he proceed- 1805. ed to Kentucky, and after spending a few weeks there, departed by land, through the Indiana Territory, on his way to St. Louis, where he took up his residence with a relation of his, who had been appointed, at his special request, the secretary of the new Louisiana Territory. It was upon meeting him at St. Louis that Burr's altered and mysterious manner, and the unexplained hints which he threw out of a splendid enterprise, first excited in Wilkinson's mind, according to his own account, definite suspicions as to Burr's designs. He spoke, indeed, of this enterprise as favored by the government; but he spoke, at the same time, of the government itself as imbecile, and of the people of the West as ready for revolt. So much was Wilkinson impressed, that he wrote to his friend Smith, the Secretary of the Navy, that Burr was about something, whether internal or external he could not discover, and advising to keep a strict watch upon him; at least Wilkinson's aid-de-camp afterward testified that such a letter was copied by him, and, as he believed, dispatched through the post-office, though Smith did not recollect having received it. Burr presently left St. Louis, carrying with him a let- Sept. 14. ter from Wilkinson to Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory, strongly urging the use of his influence to get Burr chosen a delegate to Congress from that territory -a letter written, as Wilkinson alleged, under the confirmed impression that nothing but the being put into some legitimate career would save Burr from very dangerous courses. From the Indiana Territory Burr continued his route eastward, stopping at Cincinnati, Chilicothe, and Marietta, whence, toward the end of the year, XIX. CHAPTER he returned to Philadelphia. That winter, and the following spring and summer, he spent partly in Philadel 1806 phia and partly in Washington. While in Philadelphia, he resided in a small house in an obscure street, where he was visited by many persons, apparently on business, all of whom he received with a certain air of precaution and mystery, and no two of whom did he see at the same time. At Washington, during that winter, Burr sought and obtained frequent intercourse with Eaton, who had then lately returned from the Mediterranean, in no very good humor with the government. He told Eaton that he had already organized a secret expedition against the Spanish provinces of Mexico, in which he asked him to join; and Eaton, under the impression, as he said, that the expedition was secretly countenanced by government -to which the state of Spanish relations and the Miranda expedition, then on foot, might well give color-gave him encouragement that he would. Burr then proceeded to further confidences, such as excited suspicions in Eaton's mind as to the real character of his intended enterprise. He seemed anxious to increase to the utmost Eaton's irritation against the government, which he accused of want of character, want of gratitude, and want of justice. Wishing, according to his own account, to draw Burr out, Eaton encouraged him to go on, till finally he developed a project for revolutionizing the Western country, separating it from the Union, and establishing a monarchy (it was just at this time that Bonaparte was making kings of all his family), of which he was to be sovereign; New Orleans to be his capital; and his dominion to be further extended by a force organized on the Mississippi, so as to include a part or the whole of Mexico. He assured Eaton that Wilkinson was a party XIX. to this enterprise, and would no doubt be able to carry CHAPTER with him the regular troops on the Western waters, who might easily be re-enforced by ten or twelve thousand 1806. Western volunteers. He had besides, so he asserted, agents in the Spanish provinces, and many there were ready to co-operate. He spoke of the establishment of an independent government west of the Alleghanies as an inherent right of the people, as much so as the separation of the Atlantic States from Great Britain-an event which, like that, must sooner or later take place, and to which existing circumstances were specially favorable. There was no energy in the government to be dreaded; in fact, the power of the government was in a manner paralyzed by the deep and serious divisions in political opinion prevalent throughout the Union. Many enterprising men, who aspired to something beyond the dull pursuits of civil life, would be ready to volunteer in this enterprise. The promise of an immediate distribution of land, with the mines of Mexico in prospect, would call multitudes to his standard. Warming up with the subject, he declared that, if he could only secure the marine corps-the only soldiers stationed at Washington—and gain over the naval commanders, Truxton, Preble, Decatur, and others, he would turn Congress neck and heels out of doors, assassinate the president, seize on the treasury and navy, and declare himself the protector of an energetic government. To which Eaton, according to his own statement, replied, that one single word, usurper, would destroy him; and that, though he might succeed at Washington in the first instance, within six weeks after he would have his throat cut by the Yankee militia. Satisfied that Burr was a very dangerous man, but having no overt act, nor even any writing, to produce CHAPTER against him, Eaton waited on the president, and sugXIX. gested to him the appointment of Burr to some foreign 1806. mission, giving as a reason for it that, if he were not so disposed of, there would be, within eighteen months, an insurrection, if not a revolution, in the Western country. The president replied that he had too much confidence in the attachment of the Western people to the Union to allow him to entertain any such apprehensions. No questions were asked as to the origin of these fears on Eaton's part; and as Eaton's relations to the government at that moment were somewhat delicate, he pressed the subject no further. He did, however, communicate to Dana and to John Cotton Smith, members of Congress from Connecticut, the substance of Burr's conversations. They admitted that Burr was capable of any thing, but regarded his projects as too chimerical, and his circumstances as too desperate to furnish any ground for alarm. To Truxton, who was greatly dissatisfied at the cav. alier manner in which his name had been dropped from the navy list, Burr suggested the idea of a naval expedition against the Spanish provinces. He assured Truxton that, in the event of a war with Spain, which seemed then very probable, he intended to establish an independent government in Mexico; that Wilkinson and many officers of the army would join in the project; and that many greater men than Wilkinson were concerned in it. He several times renewed his invitation, till Truxton, understanding that the project was not countenanced by government, declined to have any thing to do with it. The same idea was also broached to Decatur, who also declined to co-operate. To how many others similar advances may have been made, or what co-operation Burr actually secured, is not distinctly known; but it is certain that Jonathan Dayton, who had played so conspic |