XIX. levying a force of seven thousand men for an expedi- CHAPTER tion against the Mexican provinces, and that five hundred, the vanguard of this force, would descend the Mis- 1806. sissippi under Colonel Swartwout and a Major Tyler. The territory of Orleans would be revolutionized, for which the inhabitants were quite ready. "Some seizing," he supposed, would be necessary at New Orleans, and a forced loan from the bank. It was expected to embark about the first of February. The expedition was to land at Vera Cruz, and march thence to Mexico. Naval protection would be afforded by Great Britain. Truxtun and the officers of the navy, disgusted with the conduct of the government, were ready to join, and, for the purposes of the embarkation, fast-sailing schooners had been contracted for, to be built on the Southern coast of the United States. Swartwout returned to New Orleans after remaining in the camp ten days, during which Wilkinson extracted from him all the information he could without giv. ing any hint of his own intentions. Meanwhile Wilkinson had succeeded in procuring transportation for his baggage, and, having been joined by a body of volunteer militia from Mississippi, he advanced toward the Sabine. Oct. 22 But before setting out, he dispatched Lieutenant Smith as an express, with directions to make the utmost haste, with two letters to the President of the United States, one official, the other confidential, in which, without mentioning any names, he stated the general outline of the scheme communicated to him by Swartwout. In his confidential letter, he gave as a reason for mentioning no names that, although his information appeared to be too distinct and circumstantial to be fictitious, yet the magnitude and desperation of the enterprise, and the great consequences with which it seemed to be pregnant, were XIX. CHAPTER such as to stagger his belief, and to excite doubts of it! reality, even against the conviction of his senses. I1 1806. was his desire not to mar a salutary design, nor to injure any body, but to avert a great public calamity; and what made him the more cautious was, that among other allurements held out to him, he was told-though, considering his own orders to avoid, if possible, any collision with the Spaniards, he could not believe it-that the government connived at the plan, and that the country would sustain it. Were he sure that the combination for attacking Mexico were formed in opposition to the laws and in defiance of government, he could not doubt that the revolt and revolutionizing of the Territory of Orleans would be the first step in the enterprise; and, notwithstanding his orders to repel the Spaniards to the other side of the Sabine, he should not hesitate to make the best arrangement he could with the Spanish commander, so as to hasten at once to New Orleans. The defensive works of that city had mouldered away, yet, by extraordinary exertions, it might in a few weeks be rendered defensible against an undisciplined rabble acting in a bad cause. As matters stood, however, he deemed it his first duty to execute his orders against the Spaniards. Simultaneously with this letter to the president, Wilkinson sent directions to the commanding officer at New Orleans to put that place in the best possible condition of defense, and especially to secure, by contract if possible, but at all events to secure, a train of artillery belonging to the French government, which the administration had been too parsimonious to purchase, but which the French had yet had no opportunity to remove, and which might now fall into bad hands. As the American forces advanced upon the Spaniards, they retired behind the Sabine, leaving a rear guard on XIX. 1806. Nov. 3. the western bank of that river. A messenger was dis- CHAPTER patched to the Spanish camp; and, after some negotiation, a temporary arrangement was entered into that the Sabine should be, for the present, the line of demarcation between the two nations. Leaving Cushing to bring down the troops, Wilkinson hastened back to Natchi toches, where he received a letter from Bollman, dated Nov. 7 at New Orleans, covering a duplicate of Burr's letter in cipher, and also a letter, partly in cipher, from Dayton, different in its precise tenor, but in general substance much the same with that brought by Swartwout. Just about the same time he also received letter from a gentleman at Natchez, stating the arrival there of a person from St. Louis in thirteen days, bringing a report that a plan to revolutionize the Western country was just ready to explode Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the Territory of Orleans having combined to declare themselves independent on the 15th of November. This letter gave new impulse to Wilkinson's alarm. He wrote to Cushing to hasten down the troops with the greatest possible dispatch, and to the officer commanding at New Orleans, to whom he sent a re-enforcement of men and artificers, to press forward his defenses, but without giving any signs of alarm, or any indication of his reasons. Wilkinson himself proceeded with all dispatch to Natchez, whence, in the midst of a severe domestic bereavement in the death of his wife, he dispatched a second special messenger to the president with duplicates of his former communications, inclosed in a letter, in which he declared that all his doubts as to the reality of the conspiracy were now at an end, mentioning also the insufficiency of the means at his disposal, and the necessity of putting New Orleans under martial law; in which step he trusted to be sustained by the president. Wil CHAPTER kinson exhibited to this messenger the ciphered letters XIX. he had received, and authorized him to name Burr, Day1806. ton, Truxtun, and others, as apparently engaged in the enterprise. Nov. 25. He dispatched, at the same time, a confidential letter to Governor Claiborne, of the Orleans Territory, informing him that his government was menaced by a secret plot, and entreating him to co-operate with the military commander in measures of defense; but enjoining se crecy till he himself arrived. He also called on the acting governor of the Mississippi Territory for five hundred militia to proceed to New Orleans. But as he declined to specify the service for which he required them, the acting governor declined to answer the requisition. Arrived at New Orleans, and being under apprehensions that Burr had many secret partisans in that city— a thing by no means improbable-and the rumors from up the river growing more and more alarming, a public Dec. 9. meeting of merchants was called, before which Wilkinson and Claiborne made an exposition of Burr's suspected projects. The militia of the Territory was placed by Claiborne at Wilkinson's disposal; in addition to a small squadron of gun-boats and ketches in the river, vessels were armed and fitted out to repel the expected attack by sea, and a sort of voluntary embargo was agreed upon by the merchants in order that scamen might be got to man them. The Territorial legislature was also called together for a special session. After consultation with the governor and two of the Dec. 14. judges, Wilkinson caused Bollman, Swartwout, and Ogden to be arrested, and confined on board some of the vessels of the squadron. A writ of habeas corpus hav. ing been issued in the case of Bollman by the Superior Court, Wilkinson appeared before the judges in full uni WILKINSON'S PROCEEDINGS AT NEW ORLEANS. 613 XIX. form, attended by his aids-de-camp, and made a re- CHAPTER turn stating that, as a necessary step toward the defense of the city, menaced by a lawless band of traitors, he had 1806. arrested Bollman on his own responsibility, on a charge of misprision of treason; and that he would do the same with any other person against whom reasonable suspicions might arise. Indeed, he intimated very strongly that both Alexander and Livingston, the lawyers at whose instance the habeas corpus had issued, ought to be arrested. Bollman and Swartwout were sent prisoners by sea to Washington. Ogden was 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 Ogden and Alexander the lawyer, 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 Bollman's case. Wortman himself was shortly after arrested, but was set at liberty by the judge of the United States District Court. New Orleans, thus subjected 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, publisher 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 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, had appeared in the Ohio Gazette, one of the |