Volume III Part 36 (2/2)
At the beginning of August, 1806, he once more journeyed down the Ohio.
On the way he stopped at a settlement on the Monongahela, not far from Pittsburgh, where he visited one Colonel George Morgan. This man afterward declared that Burr talked mysteriously--the Administration was contemptible, two hundred men could drive the Government into the Potomac, five hundred could take New York; and, Burr added laughingly, even the Western States could be detached from the Union. Most of this was said ”in the presence of a considerable company.”[840]
The elder Morgan, who was aged and garrulous,[841] pieced together his inferences from Burr's meaning looks, jocular innuendoes, and mysterious statements,[842] and detected a purpose to divide the Nation. Deeply moved, he laid his deductions before the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania and two other gentlemen from Pittsburgh, a town close at hand; and a letter was written to Jefferson, advising him of the threatened danger.[843]
From Pittsburgh, Burr for the second time landed on the island of Harman Blennerha.s.sett, who was eager for any adventure that would restore his declining fortunes. If war with Spain should, after all, not come to pa.s.s, Burr's other plan was the purchase of the enormous Bastrop land grant on the Was.h.i.+ta River. Blennerha.s.sett avidly seized upon both projects.[844] From that moment forward, the settlement of this rich and extensive domain in the then untouched and almost unexplored West became the alternative purpose of Aaron Burr in case the desire of his heart, the seizure of Mexico, should fail.[845]
Unfortunately Blennerha.s.sett who, as his friends declared, ”had all kinds of sense, except common sense,”[846] now wrote a series of letters for an Ohio country newspaper in answer to the articles appearing in the Kentucky organ of Daveiss and Humphrey Marshall, the _Western World_.
The Irish enthusiast tried to show that a separation of the Western States from ”Eastern domination” would be a good thing. These foolish communications were merely repet.i.tions of similar articles then appearing in the Federalist press of New England, and of effusions printed in Southern newspapers a few years before. n.o.body, it seems, paid much attention to these vagaries of Blennerha.s.sett. It is possible that Burr knew of them, but proof of this was never adduced. When the explosion came, however, Blennerha.s.sett's maunderings were recalled, and they became another one of those evidences of Burr's guilt which, to the public mind, were ”confirmation strong as proofs of holy writ.”
Burr and his newly made partner contracted for the building of fifteen boats, to be delivered in four months; and pork, meal, and other provisions were purchased. The island became the center of operations.
Soon a few young men from Pittsburgh joined the enterprise, some of them sons of Revolutionary officers, and all of them of undoubted loyalty to the Nation. To each of these one hundred acres of land on the Was.h.i.+ta were promised, as part of their compensation for partic.i.p.ating in the expedition, the entire purpose of which was not then explained to them.[847]
Burr again visited Marietta, where the local militia were a.s.sembled for their annual drill, and put these rural soldiers through their evolutions, again fascinating the whole community.[848] At Cincinnati, Burr held another long conference with his partner, Senator John Smith, who was a contractor and general storekeeper. The place which the Was.h.i.+ta land speculation had already come to hold in his mind is shown by the conversation--Burr talked as much of that project as he did of war with Spain and his great ambition to invade Mexico;[849] but of secession, not a syllable.
Next Burr hurried to Nashville and once more became the honored guest of Andrew Jackson, whom he frankly told of the modification of his plans.
His immediate purpose, Burr said, now was to settle the Was.h.i.+ta lands.
Of course, if war should break out he would lead a force into Texas and Mexico. Burr kept back only the part Wilkinson was to play in precipitating hostilities; and he said nothing of his efforts to bolster up that frail warrior's resolution.[850]
In Tennessee and Kentucky the talk was again of war with Spain. Indeed, it was now the only talk.[851] For the third time in the Tennessee Capital a public banquet was given to the hero by whom the people expected to be led against the enemy. Soon afterward Jackson issued his proclamation to the Tennessee militia calling them to arms against the hated Spaniards, and volunteered his services to the National Government. Jefferson answered in a letter provoking in its vagueness.[852]
At Lexington, Kentucky, Burr and Blennerha.s.sett now purchased from Colonel Charles Lynch, the owner of the Bastrop grant, several hundred thousand acres on the Was.h.i.+ta River in Northern Louisiana.[853]
To many to whom Burr had spoken of his scheme to invade Mexico he gave the impression that his designs had the approval of the Administration; to some he actually stated this to be the fact. In case war was declared, the Administration, of course, would necessarily support Burr's attack upon the enemy; if hostilities did not occur, the ”Government might overlook the preparations as in the case of Miranda.”[854] It is hard to determine whether the project to invade Mexico--of which Burr did not inform them, but which they knew to be his purpose--or the plan to settle the Was.h.i.+ta lands, was the more attractive to the young men who wished to join him. Certainly, the Bastrop grant was so placed as to afford every possible lure to the youthful, enterprising, and adventurous.[855]
At this moment Wilkinson, apparently recovered from the panic into which Clark's letter had thrown him a year before, seemed resolved at last to strike. He even wrote with enthusiasm to General John Adair: ”The time long looked for by many & wished for by more has now arrived, for subverting the Spanish government in Mexico--be ready & join me; we will want little more than light armed troops.... More will be done by marching than by fighting.... We cannot fail of success.[856] Your military talents are requisite. Unless you fear to join a Spanish intriguer [Wilkinson] come immediately--without your aid I can do nothing.”[857] In reply Adair wrote Wilkinson that ”the United States had not declared war against Spain and he did not believe they would.”
If not, Adair would not violate the law by joining Wilkinson's projected attack on Spain.[858]
By the same post Wilkinson wrote to Senator John Smith a letter bristling with italics: ”I shall a.s.suredly push them [the Spaniards]
over the Sabine ... as that you are alive.... _You must speedily send me a force_ to support our pretensions ... _5000 mounted infantry ... may suffice to carry us forward as far as Grand River_ [the Rio Grande], _there we shall require 5000 more to conduct us to Mount el Rey ...
after which from 20_ to _30,000 will be necessary to carry our conquests to California_ and the _Isthmus of Darien. I write in haste, freely_ and _confidentially_, being ever your friend.”[859]
In Kentucky once more the rumors sprang up that Burr meant to dismember the Union, and these were now put forward as definite charges. For months Joseph Hamilton Daveiss, a brother-in-law of John Marshall--appointed at the latter's instance by President Adams as United States Attorney for the District of Kentucky[860]--had been writing Jefferson exciting letters about some kind of conspiracy in which he was sure Burr was engaged. The President considered lightly these tales written him by one of his bitterest enemies.
With the idea of embarra.s.sing the Republican President, by connecting him, through the Administration's seeming acquiescence in Burr's projects as in the case of the Miranda expedition, Daveiss and his relative, former Senator Humphrey Marshall--both leaders of the few Federalists now remaining in Kentucky--welded together the rumors of Burr's Mexican designs and those of his treasonable plot to separate the Western States from the Union. These they published in a newspaper which they controlled at Frankfort.[861]
The moss was removed from the ancient Spanish intrigues; Wilkinson was truthfully denounced as a pensioner of Spain; but the plot, it was charged, had veered from a union of the West with the Spanish dominions, to the establishment, by force of arms, of an independent trans-Alleghany Government.[862] The Federalist organs in the East adopted the stories related in the _Western World_, and laid especial emphasis on the disloyalty of the Western States, particularly of Kentucky.
The rumors had so aroused the people living near Blennerha.s.sett's island that Mrs. Blennerha.s.sett sent a messenger to warn Burr that he could not, in safety, appear there again. Learning this from the bearer of these tidings, Burr's partner, Senator John Smith, demanded of his a.s.sociate an explanation. Burr promptly answered that he was ”greatly surprised and really hurt” by Smith's letter. ”If,” said Burr, ”there exists any design to separate the Western from the Eastern States, I am totally ignorant of it. I never harbored or expressed any such intention to any one, nor did any person ever intimate such design to me.”[863]
Daveiss and Humphrey Marshall now resolved to stay the progress of the plot at which they were convinced that the Republican Administration was winking. If Jefferson was complacent, Daveiss would act and act officially; thus the President, by contrast, would be fatally embarra.s.sed. Another motive, personal in its nature, inspired Daveiss.
He was an able, fearless, pa.s.sionate man, and he hated Burr violently for having killed Hamilton whom Daveiss had all but wors.h.i.+ped.[864]
Early in November the District Attorney moved the United States Court at Frankfort to issue compulsory process for Burr's apprehension and for the attendance of witnesses. Burr heard of this at Lexington and sent word that he would appear voluntarily. This he did, and, the court having denied Daveiss's motion because of the irregularity of it, the accused demanded that a public and official investigation be made of his plans and activities. Accordingly, the grand jury was summoned and Daveiss given time to secure witnesses.
On the day appointed Burr was in court. By his side was his attorney, a tall, slender, sandy-haired young man of twenty-nine who had just been appointed to the National Senate. Thus Henry Clay entered the drama.
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