WILKINSON'S PROCEEDINGS AT NEW ORLEANS. 613 XIX. might arise. Indeed, he intimated very strongly that CHAPTER both Alexander and Livingston, the lawyers at whose instance the habeas corpus had issued, ought to be ar- 1806. rested. Bollman and Swartwout were sent prisoners by sea to Washington. Ogden was once released on a writ of habeas corpus, granted by Judge Wortman, of the County Court, and directed to the officer in whose custody Ogden was. But both he and Alexander, who had obtained the writ, were shortly after taken into custody by Wilkinson's order, and to a new writ Wilkinson made the same return as in Boll man's case. Wortman himself was presently arrested, but was set at liberty by the judge of the United States District Court. New Orleans, subjected, in fact, to martial law, presented a singular scene of doubts, alarm, and mutual suspicions and recriminations. The chief ground of suspicion against Livingston seems to have been that Burr had drawn upon him, in favor of Bollman, for $1500. But this, Livingston insisted, was merely in discharge of an old debt. Among those arrested was Bradford, the old whisky rebel, editor of the only paper in New Orleans, which was thus brought to a stop. While these events were occurring on the Lower Mississippi, much excitement also prevailed on the waters. of the Ohio and its tributaries. About the time of Burr's arrival in the Western country, a series of articles, signed Querist, appeared in the Ohio Gazette, one of the four or five newspapers published at that time west of the mountains, arguing strongly in favor of the separation of the Western States from the Union. These articles were nominally written by Blennerhasset, but were believed to be furnished in substance by Burr. Articles having the same tendency, though less bold and decided, appeared in the Commonwealth, a Democratic paper published at Pittsburg. CHAPTER There had sprung up in Kentucky, on the part of some aspirants for political power, a great uneasiness at 1806. the existing monopoly of office and influence by the old Republican leaders. The circumstance of a draft on the Spanish government for a considerable amount, drawn by Sebastian, one of those leaders, and now a judge of the Court of Appeals, and found among the effects of a Kentucky merchant, who had died during a visit to New Orleans, had revived the old story of Spanish pensioners in Kentucky-a story zealously seized upon as a means of destroying the influence of the old monopolists of political influence. Daviess, the United States District Attorney, had caught very eagerly at this affair, and early in the year had opened a correspondence with ́the president, under an injunction of the strictest secrecy, implicating, on mere suspicion, rumor, or guess, Wilkinson, Brown, late one of the Kentucky senators, and, indeed, most of the leading politicians of that state, as being, or having been, Spanish pensioners, and therefore likely, in case of a war with Spain, to play into her hands, and perhaps to bring about that separation of the Union which Spain had formerly instigated, and for which her partisans had labored, without being then able to accomplish it. Daviess even went so far as to abandon his plantation, and to make a journey of exploration down the Mississippi, for the purpose of unraveling this plot. He went, however, no further than St. Louis, and returned without discovering any thing. Meanwhile, there had been set up at Lexington a newspaper called the Western World, edited by that same Wood whose History of John Adams's administration Burr had formerly labored to suppress. By whom this paper was started does not distinctly appear. Daviess denied, in his letters to the president, any agency XIX. in it. But its object evidently was to attack the al- CHAPTER leged Spanish pensioners, and an able and well-informed correspondent was soon found in Humphrey Marshall, the 1806. former Federal senator, and a bitter enemy of the old clique, who took the opportunity to lay open matters connected with the separation of Kentucky from Virginia, of which the present inhabitants, consisting to so large an extent of recent immigrants, knew but little." The name of Wilkinson, against whom, also, Marshall entertained a mortal hatred, was freely used in connection with these alleged Spanish intrigues, of which he was represented as having been a chief manager; and the fact that certain large sums of money had been at different times remitted to him from New Orleans was urged as proof positive of his corrupt connection with the Spanish government. The rumors in circulation of a new enterprise on foot under Burr's leadership became connected, in the public mind, with those relating to the old Spanish plot, and Wilkinson's reputed connection with that gave additional credibility to the hints of Burr and his confederates of his being also connected with the new movement. Some numbers of the Western World, containing im putations of this sort, which reached the Lower Missis sippi, added not a little to Wilkinson's embarrassments. So currently, indeed, were he and Burr connected together by rumor, that General Jackson wrote to Gov- Nov. 12. ernor Claiborne, suggesting that an enterprise was on foot against his territory, and warning him to be on his guard against internal as well as external dangers, and as well against Wilkinson as against Burr. "I hate the Dons," wrote Jackson; "I would delight to see Mexico reduced; but I would die in the last ditch before I would see the Union disunited." This letter of Jack XIX. CHAPTER son's having reached Claiborne about the time of Wilkinson's disclosures, made him pay the greater attention 1806. to them. Indeed, this letter was one of the documents, the name of the writer and some passages of it being suppressed, which had been read at the public meeting in New Orleans, at which the existence of the plot and the consequent danger of the city had been first publicly announced. In Kentucky, among the leading politicians, the imputations of criminal designs against Burr were very slow in finding credit. Those, indeed, who believed the charges in the Western World as to the old Spanish plot, looked also with very suspicious eyes on Burr's designs; but the adherents of those accused as Spanish pensioners were disposed, on the other hand, to treat both sets of rumors as alike futile and malicious. Daviess, the district attorney, naturally kept a watchful eye on Burr. He wrote several times to the president on the subject, but without eliciting any specific Nov. 5. directions. Finally, upon an affidavit sworn to by himself, that he had good reason to suspect Burr of meditating an unlawful expedition against Mexico, and also a separation of the Western States from the Union, he applied to the Federal District Court for process of arrest, and to hold Burr to recognizances for his appearance to answer these charges, and for his good behavior in the mean time. The judge, Harry Innis, himself one of the old Spanish intriguers, after argument, refused to issue process, but directed a grand jury to be impanneled to inquire into the accusation, and witnesses to be summoned. Immediately after the announcement of this Nov. 8. opinion, Burr appeared in court with his counsel, one of whom was Henry Clay, at that time a rising young lawyer and politician, just elected to the Senate of the XIX. United States to supply a vacancy of a single session oc- CHAPTER casioned by Adair's resignation. Great readiness was professed by Burr and his counsel for an immediate in- 1806. vestigation; but as the witness chiefly relied upon by the district attorney-David Floyd, an undoubted partisan of Burr, then at Vincennes in his capacity of a member of the Indiana Legislature-failed to appear, the grand jury was discharged without further proceedings. It was not long, however, before the district attorney made an application for a new grand jury. This time Nov. 25. he summoned General Adair as his principal witness; but as he too failed to appear at the appointed time, Dec. 2. the attorney was obliged to ask a little delay. Thereupon Burr, with his counsel, again appeared in court, and insisted that the business should proceed at once. The attorney denied Burr's right to appear at all in this stage of the proceedings, as no bill had yet been found; but Burr's counsel pressed the matter with great zeal, and the judge finally told the attorney that, if he did not proceed, the grand jury would be dismissed. He also refused to allow the attorney to attend the grand jury and examine the witnesses. Thereupon, as the main witness was wanting, and those present were all unwilling ones, with nobody to draw them out, the jury not only failed to find a bill against Burr, but they even went so far as to sign a pa- Dec. 5. per, in which they declared their persuasion that nothing was intended by him injurious to the United States. Burr's triumph was celebrated by a ball at Frankfort; after which he suddenly departed for Nashville, in company with General Adair, against whom the district attorney had also presented a bill of indictment, which the jury refused to find. Steps, however, were already in progress at the North, |