Volume III Part 37 (1/2)

Daveiss failed to produce a single witness, and Burr, ”after a dignified and grave harangue,” was discharged, to the tumultuous delight of the people.[865]

Two weeks later the discomfited but persistent and undaunted District Attorney again demanded of Judge Innes the apprehension of the ”traitor.” Clay requested of Burr a written denial of the charges so incessantly made against him. This Burr promptly furnished.[866] Clay was so convinced of Burr's integrity that he declared in court that he ”could pledge his own honor and innocence” for those of his client.

Once more no witnesses were produced; once more the grand jury could not return an indictment; once more Burr was discharged. The crowd that packed the court-room burst into cheers.[867] That night a ball, given in Burr's honor, crowned this second of his triumphs in the United States Court.[868]

Thereafter Burr continued his preparations as if nothing had happened.

To all he calmly stated the propriety of his enterprise. To his fellow adventurer, Senator John Smith, he was again particularly explicit and clear: ”If there should be a war between the United States and Spain, I shall head a corps of volunteers and be the first to march into the Mexican provinces. If peace should be proffered, which I do not expect, I shall settle my Was.h.i.+ta lands, and make society as pleasant as possible.... I have been persecuted, shamefully persecuted.”[869] As to dividing the Union, Burr told Smith that ”if Bonaparte with all his army were in the western country with the object ... he would never see salt water again.”[870]

While Burr was writing this letter, Jefferson was signing a doc.u.ment that, when sent forth, as it immediately was, ignited all the rumors, reports, accusations, and suspicions that had been acc.u.mulating, and set the country on fire with wrath against the disturber of our national bliss.

When Wilkinson received Burr's cipher dispatch, he took time to consider the best methods for saving himself, filling his purse, and brightening his tarnished reputation.[871] The faithful and unsuspecting young Swartwout, Burr's messenger, was persuaded to remain in Wilkinson's camp for a week after the delivery of the fatal letter. He was treated with marked friendliness, and from him the General afterward pretended to have extracted frightful details of Burr's undertaking.[872]

Seven more days pa.s.sed, and at last, two weeks after he had received Burr's cipher dispatch, Wilkinson wrote Jefferson that ”a Numerous and powerful a.s.sociation, extending from New York to ... the Mississippi had been formed to levy & rendezvous eight or Ten Thousand Men in New Orleans ... & from thence ... to carry an Expedition against Vera Cruz.”

Wilkinson gave details--dates and places of a.s.sembling troops, methods of invasion, etc., and added: ”It is unknown under what Authority this Enterprize has been projected, from where the means of its support are derived, or what may be the intentions of its leaders in relation to the Territory of Orleans.”[873]

Surprising as this was, the General supported it by a ”confidential” and personal letter to Jefferson[874] still more mysterious and disquieting: ”The magnitude of the Enterprize, the desperation of the Place, and the stupendous consequences with which it seems pregnant, stagger my belief & excite doubts of the reality, against the conviction of my Senses; & it is for this reason I shall forbear to commit Names.... I have never in my whole Life found myself in such circ.u.mstances of perplexity and Embarra.s.sment as at present; for I am not only uninformed of the prime mover and Ultimate Objects of this daring Enterprize, but am ignorant of the foundation on which it rests.”

Wilkinson went on to say that, as an inducement for him to take part in it, he had been told that ”you [Jefferson] connive at the combination and that our country will justify it.” If this were not true, ”then I have no doubt the revolt of this Territory will be made an auxiliary step to the main design of attacking Mexico.” So he thought he ought to compromise with the Spaniards and throw himself with his ”little Band into New Orleans, to be ready to defend that Capitol against Usurpation and violence.”

He wrote more to the same effect, and added this postscript: ”Should Spain be disposed to War seriously with us, might not some plan be adopted to correct the delirium of the a.s.sociates, and by a pitiable appeal to their patriotism to engage them in the service of their Country. I merely offer the suggestion as a possible expedient to prevent the Horrors of a civil contest, and I do believe that, with competent authority I could accomplish the object.”[875]

This was the letter which a few months later caused Chief Justice John Marshall to issue a subpoena _duces tec.u.m_ directed to President Thomas Jefferson in order to have it produced in court.[876]

Jefferson had known of the rumors about Burr--George Morgan, Joseph H.

Daveiss, and William Eaton had put him on the track of the ”traitor.”

Others had told of the American Catiline's treasonable plans; and the newspapers, of which he was a studious reader, had advised the President of every sensation that had appeared. Jefferson and his Cabinet had nervously debated the situation, decided on plans to forestall the conspiracy, and then hurriedly abandoned them;[877] evidently they had no faith in the lurid stories of Burr's treasonable purposes and preparations.

Letters to Jefferson from the West, arriving October 24, 1806, bore out the disbelief of the President and his Cabinet in Burr's lawless activities; for these advices from the President's friends who, on the ground, were closely watching Burr, contained ”not one word ... of any movements by Colonel Burr. This total silence of the officers of the Government, of the members of Congress, of the newspapers, proves he is committing no overt act against law,” Jefferson wrote in his Cabinet Memorandum.[878] So the President and his Cabinet decided to do nothing further at that time than to order John Graham, while on his way to a.s.sume the office of Secretary of the Orleans Territory, to investigate Burr's activities.

But when the mysterious warnings from Wilkinson reached Jefferson, he again called his Cabinet into consultation and precipitate action was taken. Orders were dispatched to military commanders to take measures against Burr's expedition; Wilkinson was directed to withdraw his troops confronting the Spaniards and dispose of them for the defense of New Orleans and other endangered points.

Most important of all, a Presidential Proclamation was issued to all officials and citizens, declaring that a conspiracy had been discovered, warning all persons engaged in it to withdraw, and directing the ferreting out and seizure of the conspirators' ”vessels, arms and military stores.”[879] Graham preceded the Proclamation and induced Governor Tiffin and the Ohio Legislature to take action for the seizure of Burr's boats and supplies at Marietta; and this was done.

On December 10, 1806, Comfort Tyler of Onondaga County, New York, one of the minor leaders of the Burr expedition,[880] arrived at Blennerha.s.sett's island with a few boats and some twenty young men who had joined the adventure. There were a half-dozen rifles among them, and a few fowling pieces. With these the youths went hunting in the Ohio forests. Blennerha.s.sett, too, had his pistols. This was the whole of the warlike equipment of that militant throng--all that const.i.tuted that ”overt act of treason by levying war against the United States” which soon brought Burr within the shadow of the gallows.

Jefferson's Proclamation had now reached Western Virginia, and it so kindled the patriotism of the militia of Wood County, within the boundaries of which the island lay, that that heroic host resolved to descend in its armed might upon the embattled ”traitors,” capture and deliver them to the vengeance of the law. The Wood County men, unlike those of Ohio, needed no act of legislature to set their loyalty in motion. The Presidential Proclamation, and the sight of the enemies of the Nation gathered in such threatening and formidable array on Blennerha.s.sett's island, were more than enough to cause them to spring to arms in behalf of their imperiled country.

Badly frightened, Blennerha.s.sett and Tyler, leaving Mrs. Blennerha.s.sett behind, fled down the river with thirty men in six half-equipped boats.

They pa.s.sed the sentries of the Wood County militia only because those ministers of vigilance had got thoroughly drunk and were sound asleep.

Next day, however, the militia invaded the deserted island and, finding the generously stocked wine cellar, restored their strength by drinking all the wine and whiskey on the place. They then demonstrated their abhorrence of treason by breaking the windows, demolis.h.i.+ng the furniture, tearing the pictures, trampling the flower-beds, burning the fences, and insulting Mrs. Blennerha.s.sett.[881]

Graham procured the authorities of Kentucky to take action similar to that adopted in Ohio. Burr, still ignorant of Jefferson's Proclamation, proceeded to Nashville, there to embark in the boats Jackson was building for him, to go on the last river voyage of his adventure.

Jackson, like Smith and Clay, had been made uneasy by the rumors of Burr's treasonable designs. He had written Governor Claiborne at New Orleans a letter of warning, particularly against Wilkinson, and not mentioning Burr by name.[882] When Burr arrived at the Tennessee Capital, Jackson, his manner now cold, demanded an explanation. Burr, ”with his usual dignified courtesy, instantly complied.”[883] It would seem that Jackson was satisfied by his rea.s.surance, in spite of the President's Proclamation which reached Nashville three days before Burr's departure;[884] for not only did Jackson permit him to proceed, but, when the adventurer started down the c.u.mberland in two of the six boats which he had built on Burr's previous orders, consented that a nephew of his wife should make one of the ten or fifteen young men who accompanied the expedition. He even gave the boy a letter of introduction to Governor Claiborne at New Orleans.[885]

After the people had recovered from the shock of astonishment that Jefferson's Proclamation gave them, the change in them was instantaneous and extreme.[886] The President, to be sure, had not mentioned Burr's name or so much as hinted at treason; all that Jefferson charged was a conspiracy to attack the hated Spaniards, and this was the hope and desire of every Westerner. Nevertheless, the public intelligence penetrated what it believed to be the terrible meaning behind the President's cautious words; the atrocious purpose to dismember the Union, reports of which had pursued Burr since a Spanish agent had first set the rumor afoot a year before, was established in the minds of the people.

Surely the President would not hunt down an American seeking to overthrow Spanish power in North America, when a Spanish ”liberator” had been permitted to fit out in the United States an expedition to do the same thing in South America. Surely Jefferson would not visit his wrath on one whose only crime was the gathering of men to strike at Spain with which power, up to that very moment, everybody supposed war to be impending and, indeed, almost begun. This was unthinkable. Burr must be guilty of a greater crime--the greatest of crimes. In such fas.h.i.+on was public opinion made ready to demand the execution of the ”traitor” who had so outrageously deceived the people; and that popular outcry began for the blood of Aaron Burr by which John Marshall was a.s.sailed while presiding over the court to which the accused was finally taken.

From the moment that Wilkinson decided to denounce Burr to the President, his language became that of a Bombastes Furioso, his actions those of a military ruffian, his secret movements matched the cunning of a bribe-taking criminal. By swiftest dispatch another message was sent to Jefferson. ”My doubts have ceased,” wrote Wilkinson, concerning ”this deep, dark, wicked, and wide-spread conspiracy, embracing the young and the old, the democrat and the federalist, the native and the foreigner, the patriot of '76 and the exotic of yesterday, the opulent and the needy, the ins and the outs.”

Wilkinson a.s.sured Jefferson, however, that he would meet the awful emergency with ”indefatigable industry, incessant vigilance and hardy courage”; indeed, declared he, ”I shall glory to give my life” to defeat the devilish plot. But the numbers of the desperadoes were so great that, unless Jefferson heavily reinforced him with men and s.h.i.+ps, he and the American army under his command would probably perish.[887]