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

Until 1783, the only attacks came from marauding Comanches, and the occasional incursion by British smugglers and adventurers, but American in-de pendence and the flood of migrants across the Appalachians changed the equation. Within five years, an estimated fifty thousand settlers had poured into the Ohio Valley and the western lands, and Spain’s near empty colony was no longer a protection but an incitement to land-hungry pioneers.

Navarro, the older of the two Spaniards and, according to his colleague, “a man of talent, active, disinterested and popular,” took the lead. Not only was he one of the wealthiest merchants in New Orleans, he was the originator of a policy of free trade and relaxed immigration for Louisiana put forward in a pamphlet as early as 1780. Under “a sovereign whose laws were not opposed to a system of free trade,” he wrote, Louisiana would develop “a numerous population and large commerce [and become] one of the most useful and best established provinces in America.” As the tide of American settlers swept over the Blue Ridge and Allegheny mountains, it became increasingly urgent for Louisiana to match them in wealth and population.

In February 1787, months before Wilkinson’s arrival, Navarro had bluntly repeated his message to Madrid: “The only way to check them [the Americans] is with a proportionate population, and it is not by imposing commercial restrictions that this population is to be acquired, but by granting a prudent expansion and freedom of trade.” For someone as alert as Wilkinson, it would not have been hard to sense the drift of Navarro’s ideas, since it harmonized so closely with his own.

Nevertheless, the important bond he formed was with his fellow soldier Miró, who had joined the army at the age of sixteen and invariably addressed the American as “brigadier.” The title emphasized their similarities and pleased Wilkinson, who even as a trader never ceased to see himself as a soldier. In subsequent reports, he would address Miró as “my dear friend” and, as he had in writing to Gates, ask to be excused his bluntness on the grounds that he wrote “out of friendship.” It had taken Miró thirty-five years to reach the rank of brigadier, but he would eventually end his career as a field marshal, the highest rank in the Spanish army, having worked his way to the top by unremitting energy and competence. Although the senior as governor, he and Navarro worked as equals. They were in complete harmony about the need to strengthen Louisiana by encouraging immigration and promoting trade.

In their joint report to Madrid, the two Spaniards recorded their favorable impressions of the American: “He is a young man of about thirty-three years of age, although he looks older; of exceedingly agreeable appearance, married, with three small children. In his manners and address, he shows that he has had a very good education which his uncommon talents have taken advantage of.” In an epoch when years and seniority were synonymous, the mistake about his age evidently arose from his air of authority, and nothing that they learned from him over a long, hot summer shook their confidence in his ability to give a lead to Kentucky opinion.

After their first meeting, they had other interviews, often with interpreters, occasionally by themselves, since Navarro spoke excellent English and Miró a little. Ostensibly they were discussing Wilkinson’s wish to sell the goods he had brought with him to New Orleans. In the long term, the American made it clear, he wanted to extend the list to include “Negroes, live Stock, tobacco, Flour, Bacon, Lard, Butter, Cheese, tallow, Apples, to the amount of fifty or sixty thousand Dollars.” But once each side discovered the overlap in their interests, their discussions took on a different dimension.

According to Miró and Navarro, after ten or twelve days Wilkinson announced that he had a “project of great importance to propose,” and having heard what he had in mind, they asked him to write it down. By then, all three must have clearly understood what each wanted. On August 8, Miró signaled their good intentions by granting a permit to “the American Brigadier Don James Wilkinson . . . to direct or cause to be brought into this country by inhabitants of Kentucky one or more launches belonging to him, with cargoes of the productions of that country.” Since only Madrid could authorize an exception to the ban on trade, this meant less than it appeared, but with the governor’s backing it could become reality, giving Wilkinson a monopoly of trade into New Orleans, worth tens of thousands of dollars. In return, Wilkinson delivered on August 21 a 7,500-word report that became known as his “First Memorial.”

The memorial presented a program for their mutual advantage. Its first part concerned the political future of the western settlers. Wilkinson had come to New Orleans, he said, at the request of “the notables of Kentucky” to discover whether Spain might be interested in opening negotiations “to admit us under its protection as vassals.”

The key to the loyalty of the Kentuckians, he explained, was access to the Mississippi, “the object on which all their hopes of temporal happiness rest, and without which misery and wretchedness is their certain portion.” To gain it, their present inclination was to ally themselves to Spain, but if that failed, they would turn to Britain for help. To decide the issue, Spain needed to act immediately. Wilkinson recommended that it should begin by “peremptorily and absolutely [refusing] to the Congress the Navigation of the Mississippi” in order to force the settlers to look to “the power which secures them this most precious privilege.”

This was the heart of what became known as the Spanish Conspiracy: to induce the Kentuckians, by offering the reward of free trade on the Mississippi, to leave the Union and become part of the Spanish empire. As its instigator, Wilkinson promised to employ “all my faculties to compass this desireable event.”

Although his recommended tactic of shutting the river to American traffic was the reverse of the policy that made him popular in Kentucky, he insisted that “a man of great popularity and political talents will be able to alienate the Western Americans from the United States, destroy the insidious designs of Great Britain and throw [the Kentuckians] into the arms of Spain.” Such a person would need to be rewarded. It would be advisable, therefore, “to offer indulgence to men of real influence” by allowing them to ship goods to New Orleans free of charge.

Independently of this policy, he also recommended that the Spaniards construct a strong defensive post near the settlement of New Madrid, just below the junction of the Ohio River with the Mississippi. This was needed because in any negotiations between Spain and the United States “the more respectable and independent the military stength of the former, the greater will be the concessions she will receive from the latter.” Once the post was constructed, immigrants should be encouraged to settle below the fort with the inducements of free land, religious toleration, and free trade on the Mississippi. Americans would flood in and “this Province would then rise into immediate Wealth, Strength and National Importance.”

In his Memoirs Wilkinson denied that he had done anything more than offer empty promises in return for the commercial advantage of importing tobacco and other products to New Orleans. “The idea of alienating Kentucky from the United States, while a prospect of national protection remained, would have been as absurd as the idea of reducing them to the vassallage of Spain,” he declared, knowing that he had advocated both.

A few years later he certainly urged an associate, Hugh McIlvain, to follow his example. “When you get to Natchez, put on your best bib and tucker,” he advised. Smartly attired, McIlvain should flatter Miró, take an oath of allegiance, and “to his enquires respecting Kentucky, say nothing that is not flattering and favourable to Luisiana.” The purpose was simply to get permission to sell tobacco in New Orleans.