Volume III Part 36 (1/2)
Mythical accounts of Burr's doings and intentions had now sprung up in the East. The universally known wish of New England Federalist leaders for a division of the country, the common talk east of the Alleghanies that this was inevitable, the vivid memory of a like sentiment formerly prevailing in Kentucky, and the belief in the seaboard States that it still continued--all rendered probable, to those, living in that section, the schemes now attributed to Burr.
Of these tales the Eastern newspapers made sensations. A separate government, they said, was to be set up by Burr in the Western States; the public lands were to be taken over and divided among Burr's followers; bounties, in the form of broad acres, were to be offered as inducements for young men to leave the Atlantic section of the country for the land of promise toward the sunset; Burr's new government was to repudiate its share of the public debt; with the aid of British s.h.i.+ps and gold Burr was to conquer Mexico and establish a vast empire by uniting that imperial domain to the revolutionized Western and Southern States.[817] The Western press truthfully denied that any secession sentiment now existed among the pioneers.
The rumors from the South and West met those from the North and East midway; but Burr having departed for Was.h.i.+ngton, they subsided for the time being. The brushwood, however, had been gathered--to burst into a raging conflagration a year later, when lighted by the torch of Executive authority in the hands of Thomas Jefferson.
During these months the Spanish officials in Mexico and in the Floridas, who had long known of the hostility of American feeling toward them, learned of Burr's plan to seize the Spanish possessions, and magnified the accounts they received of the preparations he was making.[818]
The British Minister in Was.h.i.+ngton was also in spasms of nervous anxiety.[819] When Burr reached the Capital he at once called on that slow-witted diplomat and repeated his overtures. But Pitt had died; the prospect of British financial a.s.sistance had ended;[820] and Burr sent Dayton to the Spanish Minister with a weird tale[821] in order to induce that diplomat to furnish money.
Almost at the same time the South American adventurer, Miranda, again arrived in America, his zeal more fiery than ever, for the ”liberation”
of Venezuela. He was welcomed by the Administration, and Secretary of State Madison gave him a dinner. Jefferson himself invited the revolutionist to dine at the Executive Mansion. Burr's hopes were strengthened, since he intended doing in Mexico precisely what Miranda was setting out to do in Venezuela.
In February, 1806, Miranda sailed from New York upon his Venezuelan undertaking. His openly avowed purpose of forcibly expelling the Spanish Government from that country had been explained to Jefferson and Madison by the revolutionist personally. Before his departure, the Spanish filibuster wrote to Madison, cautioning him to keep ”in the deepest secret” the ”important matters” which he (Miranda) had laid before him.[822] The object of his expedition was a matter of public notoriety.
In New York, in the full light of day, he had bought arms and provisions and had enlisted men for his enterprise.
Excepting for Burr's failure to secure funds from the British Government, events seemed propitious for the execution of his grand design. He had written to Blennerha.s.sett a polite and suggestive letter, not inviting him, however, to engage in the adventure;[823] the eager Irishman promptly responded, begging to be admitted as a partner in Burr's enterprises, and pledging the services of himself and his friends.[824] Burr, to his surprise, was cordially received by Jefferson at the White House where he had a private conference of two hours with the President.
The West openly demanded war with Spain; the whole country was aroused; in the House, Randolph offered a resolution to declare hostilities; everywhere the President was denounced for weakness and delay.[825] If only Jefferson would act--if only the people's earnest desire for war with Spain were granted--Burr could go forward. But the President would make no hostile move--instead, he proposed to buy the Floridas. Burr, lacking funds, thought for a moment of abandoning his plans against Mexico, and actually asked Jefferson for a diplomatic appointment, which was, of course, refused.[826]
The rumor had reached Spain that the Americans had actually begun war.
On the other hand, the report now came to Was.h.i.+ngton that the Spaniards had invaded American soil. The Secretary of War ordered General Wilkinson to drive the Spaniards back. The demand for war throughout the country grew louder. If ever Burr's plan of Mexican conquest was to be carried out, the moment had come to strike the blow. His confederate, Wilkinson, in command of the American Army and in direct contact with the Spaniards, had only to act.
The swirl of intrigue continued. Burr tried to get the support of men disaffected toward the Administration. Among them were Commodore Truxtun, Commodore Stephen Decatur, and ”General”[827] William Eaton.
Truxtun and Decatur were writhing under that shameful treatment by which each of these heroes had been separated, in effect removed, from the Navy. Eaton was cursing the Administration for deserting him in his African exploits, and even more for refusing to pay several thousand dollars which he claimed to have expended in his Barbary transactions.[828]
Truxtun and Burr were intimate friends, and the Commodore was fully told of the design to invade Mexico in the event of war with Spain; should that not come to pa.s.s, Burr advised Truxtun that he meant to settle lands he had arranged to purchase beyond the Mississippi. He tried to induce Truxtun to join him, suggesting that he would be put in command of a naval force to capture Havana, Vera Cruz, and Cartagena. When Burr ”positively” informed him that the President was not a party to his enterprise, Truxtun declined to a.s.sociate himself with it. Not an intimation did Burr give Truxtun of any purpose hostile to the United States. The two agreed in their contemptuous opinion of Jefferson and his Administration.[829] To Commodore Decatur, Burr talked in similar fas.h.i.+on, using substantially the same language.
But to ”General” Eaton, whom he had never before met, Burr unfolded plans more far-reaching and b.l.o.o.d.y, according to the Barbary hero's account of the revelations.[830] At first Burr had made to Eaton the same statements he had detailed to Truxtun and Decatur, with the notable difference that he had a.s.sured Eaton that the proposed expedition was ”under the authority of the general government.” Notwithstanding his familiarity with intrigue, the suddenly guileless Eaton agreed to lead a division of the invading army under Wilkinson who, Burr a.s.sured him, would be ”Chief in Command.”
But after a while Eaton's sleeping perception was aroused. Becoming as sly as a detective, he resolved to ”draw Burr out,” and ”listened with seeming acquiescence” while the villain ”unveiled himself” by confidences which grew ever wilder and more irrational: Burr would establish an empire in Mexico and divide the Union; he even ”meditated overthrowing the present Government”--if he could secure Truxtun, Decatur, and others, he ”_would turn Congress neck and heels out of doors, a.s.sa.s.sinate the President, seize the treasury and Navy; and declare himself the protector of an energetic government_.”
Eaton at last was ”shocked” and ”dropped the mask,” declaring that the one word, ”_Usurper_, would destroy” Burr. Thereupon Eaton went to Jefferson and urged the President to appoint Burr American Minister to some European government and thus get him out of the country, declaring that ”_if Burr were not in some way disposed of we should within eighteen months have an insurrection if not a revolution on the waters of the Mississippi_.” The President was not perturbed--he had too much confidence in the Western people, he said, ”to admit an _apprehension_ of that kind.” But of the horrid details of the murderous and treasonable villain's plans, never a word said Eaton to Jefferson.[831]
However, the African hero did ”detail the whole projects of Mr. Burr” to certain members of Congress.[832] ”They believed Col. Burr capable of anything--and agreed that _the fellow ought to be hanged_”; but they refused to be alarmed--Burr's schemes were ”too chimerical and his circ.u.mstances too desperate to ... merit of serious consideration.”[833]
So for twelve long months Eaton said nothing more about Burr's proposed deviltry. During this time he continued alternately to belabor Congress and the Administration for the payment of the expenses of his Barbary exploits.[834]
Andrew Jackson, while entertaining Burr on his first Western journey, had become the most promising, in practical support, of all who avowed themselves ready to follow Burr's invading standard into Mexico; and with Jackson he had freely consulted about that adventure. From Was.h.i.+ngton, Burr now wrote the Tennessee leader of the beclouding of their mutually cherished prospects of war with Spain.
But hope of war was not dead, wrote Burr--indeed, Miranda's armed expedition ”composed of American citizens, and openly fitted out in an American port,” made it probable. Jackson ought to be attending to something more than his militia offices, Burr admonished him: ”Your country is full of fine materials for an army, and I have often said a brigade could be raised in West Tennessee which would drive double their number of Frenchmen off the earth.” From such men let Jackson make out and send to Burr ”a list of officers from colonel down to ensign for one or two regiments, composed of fellows fit for business, and with whom you would trust your life and your honor.” Burr himself would, ”in case troops should be called for, recommend it to the Department of War”; he had ”reason to believe that on such an occasion” that department would listen to his advice.[835]
At last Burr, oblivious to the danger that Eaton might disclose the deadly secrets which he had so imprudently confided to a dissipated stranger, resolved to act and set out on his fateful journey. Before doing so, he sent two copies of a cipher letter to Wilkinson. This was in answer to a letter which Burr had just received from Wilkinson, dated May 13, 1806, the contents of which never have been revealed. Burr chose, as the messenger to carry overland one of the copies, Samuel Swartwout, a youth then twenty-two years of age, and brother of Colonel John Swartwout whom Jefferson had removed from the office of United States Marshal for the District of New York largely because of the Colonel's lifelong friends.h.i.+p for Burr. The other copy was sent by sea to New Orleans by Dr. Justus Erich Bollmann.[836]
No thought had Burr that Wilkinson, his ancient army friend and the arch conspirator of the whole plot, would reveal his dispatch. He and Wilkinson were united too deeply in the adventure for that to be thinkable. Moreover, the imminence of war appeared to make it certain that when the General received Burr's cipher, the two men would be comrades in arms against Spain in a war which, it cannot be too often repeated, it was believed Wilkinson could bring on at any moment.
Nevertheless, Burr and Dayton had misgivings that the timorous General might not attack the Spaniards. They bolstered him up by hopeful letters, appealing to his cupidity, his ambition, his vanity, his fear.
Dayton wrote that Jefferson was about to displace him and appoint another head of the army; let Wilkinson, therefore, precipitate hostilities--”You know the rest.... Are you ready? Are your numerous a.s.sociates ready? Wealth and glory! Louisiana and Mexico!”[837]
In his cipher dispatch to Wilkinson, Burr went to even greater lengths and with reason, for the impatient General had written him another letter, urging him to hurry: ”I fancy Miranda has taken the bread out of your mouth; and I shall be ready for the grand expedition before you are.”[838] Burr then a.s.sured Wilkinson that he was not only ready but on his way, and tried to strengthen the resolution of the s.h.i.+fty General by falsehood. He told of tremendous aid secured in far-off Was.h.i.+ngton and New York, and intimated that England would help. He was coming himself with money and men, and details were given. Bombastic sentences--entirely unlike any language appearing in Burr's voluminous correspondence and papers--were well chosen for their effect on Wilkinson's vainglorious mind: ”The G.o.ds invite us to glory and fortune; it remains to be seen whether we deserve the boon.... Burr guarantees the result with his life and honor, with the lives and honor and the fortunes of hundreds, the best blood of our country.”[839]
Fatal error! The sending of that dispatch was to give Wilkinson his opportunity to save himself by a.s.suming the disguise of patriotism and of fealty to Jefferson, and, clad in these habiliments, to denounce his a.s.sociates in the Mexican adventure as traitors to America. Soon, very soon, Wilkinson was to use Burr's letter in a fas.h.i.+on to bring his friend and many honest men to the very edge of execution--a fate from which only the fearlessness and penetrating mind of John Marshall was to save them.
But this black future Burr could not foresee. Certain, as were most men, that war with Spain could not be delayed much longer, and knowing that Wilkinson could precipitate it at any moment, Burr's mind was at rest.