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

Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, who knew Wilkinson from the campaign against Wayne, was convinced that no threat existed. In August 1797 he warned Winthrop Sargent, secretary of the Northwest Territory, “that there is too much ground to think that we have internal enemies disposed to favor the view of the French and Spanish— perhaps to detach the whole western country from the United States.” In case Sargent could not guess whom this pointed to, Pickering added, “Such a conspiracy must have conspicuous men for leaders, and such demands the closest observation.”

The presence of Andrew Ellicott in Natchez all this time made Wilkinson’s failure to move still more inexplicable. Given responsibility for running the southern boundary of the United States, Ellicott had simply ignored all attempts to stop him on the river. To Gayoso’s irritation, he had landed at Natchez in February 1797, marched his bodyguard up the bluff above the river, and planted his tent with the Union flag within sight of the fort. An angry demand that he haul down the Stars and Stripes “met with a positive refusal,” Ellicott later recalled, “and the flag wore out upon its staff.”

Amid the swirling confusion of loyalties and motives, Ellicott’s resolution was as solid as his science. Using his expertise as an astronomer, he made celestial observations that established beyond doubt that Natchez lay half a degree north of the thirty-first parallel marking the frontier agreed to by the San Lorenzo treaty. The town was American and the Spanish had no legal right to remain there, or in any of the other forts farther north.

Long before the fabric of his flag had unraveled, Ellicott discovered just how weak Gayoso’s position really was. To defend all of Louisiania and the entire length of the Mississippi, Spain had two regiments of regular soldiers, and between Illinois and Mobile there were no more than 5,440 militia, insignificant beside the 80,000 citizen-soldiers ready “to march at a moment’s notice” that the U.S. president was authorized to raise under the 1794 Militia Act. Behind the vast panoply of Spanish imperial power lurked a reality as puny as the Wizard of Oz.

Much of this information came from the magnetic, twenty- six-year- old Philip Nolan, who joined Ellicott on his way down the Mississippi. Characteristic of the dazzling effect Nolan had on all who met him was that Ellicott should have believed he was “strongly attached to the interest and welfare of our country,” while the young man was in fact the bearer of a letter from Wilkinson to Gayoso that read, “Nolan . . . is a child of my own raising, true to his profession, and firm in his attachments to Spain. I consider him a powerful instrument in our hand should occasion offer. I will answer for his conduct.”

Despite the melodrama in Detroit, the pressure to move troops south continued to grow during the summer and fall of 1797. Knowing the frailty of the Spanish defenses and their intention to ignore the treaty, Ellicott begged both Wilkinson and Guion to send forces downriver to secure control of Natchez. In their absence, the town and surrounding district threatened to break up in disorder as competing factions struggled to take over. Despite his lack of official status, Ellicott steered the volatile inhabitants away from violence and, in July, underlined Spain’s weakness by persuading the most influential planters to set up a de facto government on behalf of the United States that took over administration of the district.

In September, Wilkinson blandly told Ellicott, “You have a warm place in my affections . . . and I regret the obstacles you have experienced to the execution of your commission.” But, far from promising support, Wilkinson warned that in the opinion of influential senators Ellicott had “been too stern and peremptory” with the Spanish. The official army position, as Guion informed Ellicott from Chickasaw Bluffs, was that no troops would be moved farther south without direct orders from the general or permission from Gayoso. The general’s attitude was made abundantly clear that summer when he withdrew three companies from a regiment in Tennessee under the command of a fire-eating martinet, Colonel Thomas Butler, who was aggressively protecting farmers against the threat of Indian and Spanish attack.

In exasperation, McHenry tried to counter the effect of the general’s tactics. He wrote directly to Butler, suggesting that he should keep all his men in Tennessee, then to Guion insisting that he move on to Natchez, and finally to Wilkinson demanding that he tell Guion not to let himself be distracted by “any frivolous pretences which may be presented to him on his passage.” McHenry’s attempt to bypass a general’s orders provoked a blistering response. Wilkinson accused McHenry of unwarranted interference by issuing orders “to my subordinates immediately under my eye,” by breaking “the chain of dependence that exists from the ranks to the chief in immediate command,” and by taking action that “could be construed into a want of confidence in my command.” Wrong-footed, McHenry offered an apology, but Wilkinson refused to be mollified. The bullying tone of his letters showed who held the upper hand.

WILKINSON NEVER DOUBTED his hold over the army. What he feared was the sort of political ambush he had mounted against Wayne. Several members of Adams’s Federalist administration, including Secretary of State Timothy Pickering, regarded him with suspicion, not only for his Spanish connection, but as “a Jacobin” and a Republican. In Congress, Humphrey Marshall had finally proved his right to be admitted as Kentucky’s junior senator and was thirsting for vengeance. These enemies knew where the general was most vulnerable, and Wilkinson had good cause to fear the leakiness of Spanish security, especially the confidence placed by Carondelet and Gayoso in the thin- skinned Thomas Power.

Infuriated by the way the general had treated him, Power had in fact approached Daniel Clark Jr., a well- known New Orleans merchant, in October 1797 with damaging information. The Clark family and Wilkinson went back a long way. Clark’s Irish-born uncle, also Daniel, acted as Wilkinson’s New Orleans agent in his first trading scheme in 1787, and both uncle and nephew had represented him in the city until Nolan came south in 1791. In the New Orleans commercial community, the Clarks were recognized as among the city’s most secretive and successful merchants, and in 1795 when the uncle retired to live in Natchez, Daniel Clark Jr. took over the business—and its secrets.

Although a Spanish citizen, Clark had already decided to switch loyalties from Spain to the United States when Power contacted him and was lobbying Ellicott to be made American consul in New Orleans. After consulting his uncle, Clark decided to demonstrate his newfound loyalty to the United States by bringing Power with him to tell Ellicott about the general’s behavior.

In a dispatch sent to Pickering on November 14, 1797, Ellicott described how Power had traveled upriver to confer with members of the conspiracy and with “Gen. Wilkinson at Cincinnati . . . The first object of these plotters is to detach the States of Kentucky and Tenesee [ sic ] from the union and place them under the protection of Spain.” Ellicott told Pickering about the payments to the conspirators and the use of the pocket dictionary as a key to their cipher. His dispatch also carried the outline of another, larger plan, presumably taken from the general’s own speculations, about the expedition he would lead into Mexico once the Mississippi republic was established, and the “new empire” he intended to carve out there.

This information should have destroyed Wilkinson’s career. That it had the opposite effect of strengthening his position was due to the general’s brilliant countermove. With the cool calculation that contrasted so surprisingly with his histrionic behavior, Wilkinson forged a personal link with the unlikeliest of allies, President John Adams.