Andro Linklater - An Artist in Treason - The Extraordinary Double Life of General James Wilkinson

198 “If anything professional is to be done”: JW to Dearborn, ibid.

198 “I have extended my capacities for utility”: JW to Hamilton, undated, quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter , 199.

199 “to act towards him so as to convince”: Hamilton to Adams, September 4, 1799, quoted in Memoirs , 2:157.

200 For the reception of JW and Claiborne in New Orleans, see Hay, Admirable Trumpeter , 204–6.

CHAPTER 20: AGENT 13 REBORN

The meticulous researches of Isaac J. Cox and Arthur P. Whitaker in the first half of the twentieth century underpin the narrative of JW’s later connections with the Spanish.

202 “It was hardly possible”: Pierre- Clement de Laussat, Memoirs of My Life , quoted in Hay, Admirable Trumpeter , 210.

203 The battle of the ballroom is taken from Hay, Admirable Trumpeter , 205–6.

204 “I apprehend no Danger”: JW to Dearborn, January 6, 1804, American State Papers, Military Affairs, L.C.

204 Nolan’s cinematic life is described in Cox, “Louisiana-Texas Frontier I.”

206 JW’s intricate maneuverings with Folch and Casa Calvo are the subject of Cox, “General Wilkinson and His Later Intrigues with the Spaniards.”

207 The importance attached to “Reflections” is best gauged by the readiness of Casa Calvo to pay the massive sum of twelve thousand dollars in one installment. It clearly played a significant role in forming and reinforcing Spanish border policy.

209 “You have taken no notice of any of my letters”: Dearborn to JW, February 1804, quoted in Crackel, Mr. Jefferson’s Army.

209 “It is so important that Wilkenson’s [ sic ] maneuvers”: Jefferson to Dearborn, February 17, 1804, PTJ.

209 Twenty-two-page strategy document: Sent to Dearborn, July 13, 1804.

211 Cox’s three articles on the Louisiana-Texas frontier explore Spain’s border strategy in detail.

212 On the day that he was to meet Humboldt, Monday, June 11, 1804, JW bombarded Jefferson with detailed queries to be put to Humboldt about routes leading into Texas and Mexico. He signed himself “Jabeil Kingan,” a pseudonym that was in some ways the equivalent of Agent 13, in that he seemed to use it mostly for communicating secret information about Mexico to Americans.

Wilkinson copied Humboldt’s chart and passed it on to young Zebulon Pike when he set out on his expedition to the west in 1806. And Pike, knowing no better, later published it as an American map, provoking Humboldt to protest angrily to Jefferson at the use of information “which he undoubtedly obtained in Washington with the copy of my map . . . a quick glance at Mr. Pike’s map may prove to you from where he got it.” By then years had passed, and Jefferson brushed the matter aside, although he certainly knew how Pike came by his information.

CHAPTER 21: BURR’S AMBITION

The wealth of excellent studies of the Burr Conspiracy poses its own challenge. While juggling JW’s, Burr’s, and Clark’s competing versions, all remarkable for their tendentious way with information, Roger Kennedy’s Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character , and Gordon Wood’s “The Real Treason of Aaron Burr,” have been useful correctives. But I still incline to Henry Adams’s view in History of the United States of America that Creole unrest was, next to the loyalty of the army’s commander, the critical ingredient.

215 “To save time of which I need much and have little”: JW to Burr, May 23, 1804, quoted in Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior , 191.

216 “never known, in any country, the prejudice in favor of birth, parentage, and descent”: Quoted in Wood, “Real Treason.”

216 “Mr. Burr’s career is generally looked upon as finished”: Quoted in Adams, History of the United States .

217 “his conduct very soon inspired me with distrust”: Jefferson, “Conversations with Aaron Burr,” 1804, PTJ.

217 “He is sanguine enough to hope every thing”: Hamilton to Gouverneur Morris, December 24, 1800, WAH.

218 “to effect a separation of the Western Part of the United States”: Anthony Merry, quoted in Adams, History of the United States .

218 “You have appointed General Wilkinson”: Joseph Daveiss to Jefferson, January 10, 1806, PTJ.

219 “one of the most agreeable, best informed, most genteel, moderate”: Gideon Granger to William Easton, March 16, 1805.

219 “Of the General I have no very exalted opinion”: Albert Gallatin to Jefferson, February 12, 1806, Writings of Albert Gallatin , ed. Henry Adams Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1879. Gallatin’s comments were evidently in response to Jefferson’s query about his loyalty. In his next sentence Gallatin refers specifically to Ellicott’s warning, demonstrating that Jefferson had not only received his message, but remembered its contents.

219 “in the meantime I can only say the country is a healthy one”: JW to Charles Biddle, March 18, 1805, quoted in Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior .

220 “The Kentuckians are full of enterprise”: John Adair to JW, December 10, 1804, ibid.

220 “We must have a peep at the unknown world”: JW to Adair, May 28, 1805, Clark, Proofs , 120.

220 “he talked as if the business was indispensable”: Lyon’s deposition to Ezekiel Bacon, congressional committee of inquiry.

220 “two or three frigates”: Adams, History of the United States .

222 Morally, the battle of the queues had been won in 1804 when Jefferson himself cropped his pigtail. It went with a general tidying up of the president’s style. “He has improved much in the article of dress,” wrote Senator Plumer in December 1804; “he has laid aside the old slippers, red waistcoat, and soiled corduroy small-clothes, and was dressed all in black, with clean linen and powdered hair.”

CHAPTER 22: BETRAYER BETRAYED

The sources for this chapter are those cited earlier.

225 “the gentle Aurora with lighted taper”: The quote and the reception scene come from Hay, Admirable Trumpeter , 222.

226 “There has been Leaves cut out of the Books”: Quoted in Linklater, Measuring America , 274.

227 “From a rank Federalist to a suspected Republican”: Edward Hempstead, quoted in Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior , 207.

228 “Not a single fact has appeared”: Jefferson to Samuel Smith, May 5, 1806, PTJ. 228 “an elegant barge, [with] sails, colors, ten oars”: Aaron Burr to Theodosia Alston, Memoirs of Aaron Burr .

228 “whose worth you know well how to estimate”: JW to Clark, June 9, 1805, Clark, Proofs , 119.

229 “many absurd and evil reports circulated here”: Clark to JW, September 7, 1805, Wilkinson, Burr’s Conspiracy exposed , 82.

229 “particularly of the garrison- towns between Vera Cruz and Mexico [City]”: John Graham’s deposition to the court of inquiry, January 1806.

229 “I have encouraged, and will continue to encourage”: October 10, 1804, Burr’s Conspiracy exposed , 81.

229 “He has often said that the Union could not last”: Claiborne quoted in Gayarré, History of Louisiana , ch. 4.

230 “because I do not acknowledge his superiority,” JW to Samuel Smith, November 14, 1806, quoted in Jacobs, Tarnished Warrior , 207.

230 “My friend, no person was ever more mistaken!” and subsequent quotes: Memoirs , 2:304.

231 “a Corps of 100 Artillerists, 400 Cavalry”: JW to Dearborn, September 8, 1805, American State Papers, Military Affairs, L.C.

232 “Burr is about something”: Burr’s Conspiracy exposed , 13.

232 “You observe to me”: Adair to JW, January 27, 1806, Burr’s conspiracy exposed , 19. 233 “Nothing has been heard from the Brigadier since October”: Burr to JW, April 16, 1806 , Memoirs , vol. 2, appendix 86.